#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; # https://perlmonks.org/?node_id=11136806 use warnings; my $inplacefile = <<'END'; 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 END my $filename = \$inplacefile; # FIXME change to filename with no reference open my $fh, '<', $filename or die $!; # FIXME improve error message my $hash = {}; while( <$fh> ) { my $ref = $hash; $ref = $ref->{$_} //= {} for split /\@|\n/; } #use Data::Dump 'dd'; dd $hash; sub nest { my $h = shift; join '', map { %{$h->{$_}} ? "$_ {\n" . nest( $h->{$_} ) =~ s/^/\t/gmr . "}\n" : "$_\n"; } sort keys %$h; } print nest($hash) =~ s/\w\K\n\s*(?=\w+$)/,/gmr;