#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
# small snippet to explore dealing with complex data structures and duplicates/uniques and consolidation
my %pets;
my @info;
#() below only signify that multiple elements possible in 3rd and 4th elements of $info[i]
$a="Mary":"Owens":"cat":"white";
$b="Bill":"Thompson":"cat,dog":"white,black";
$c="Bill":"Thompson":"hamster,cat":"black,brown";
$d="Bill":"Smith":"goldfish,dog,turtle":"yellow,spotted,green";

push @info,$a,$b,$c,$d;



#how to organize this data and loop thru to populate %pets from @info and extract output as below
#desire to loop through @info and populate %pets with structure for pets hash
#$pets{first}{last}{species}{color}
#with {first} and {last} containing scalars
#with {species} and {color} containing arrays

exit;

# Desired output from printing %pets: single line with unique elements for the species and color arrays and fields separated by ":"

"Mary":"Owens":"cat":"white"
"Bill":"Thompson":"cat","dog","hamster":"white","black","brown"
"Bill":"Smith":"goldfish","dog","turtle":"yellow","spotted","green"