use strict; # https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11136806 use warnings; # creating the hierarchy pattern from the input file use Data::Dump qw/pp dd/; my $tree ={}; while ( my $line = ) { chomp $line; my @keys = split /@/, $line; my $ref = $tree; $ref = ( $ref->{$_} //= {} ) # descend into hashrefs, init explicitly when missing for @keys } my $out = pp $tree; # now "d1 => { d1 => {} }," etc # purge $out =~ s/\Q => {}//g; # ... empty hashes $out =~ s/\Q => / /g; # ... fat arrows $out =~ s/\Q},/}/g; # ... trailing commas print $out; __DATA__ instreg@d1@d1 instreg@d1@d2 instreg@d2@d1 instreg@d3@d1 instreg@d4@d1 instreg@d5@d1 instreg@d6@d1 instreg@d7@d1 instreg@d8@d1 alureg@d1@d1 alureg@d2@d1 alureg@d3@d1 alureg@d4@d1 alureg@d5@d1 alureg@d6@d1 alureg@d7@d1 alureg@d8@d1 pgmctr@d1@d1 pgmctr@d2@d1 pgmctr@d3@d1 pgmctr@d4@d1 pgmctr@d5@d1 pgmctr@m1 pgmctr@m2 pgmctr@m3 pgmctr@m4 pgmctr@m5