#! /usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Data::Dumper; $Data::Dumper::Indent = 1; my %tree; while( ) { chomp; my $t = \%tree; my @char = split //; for( @char ) { $t->{$_} = {} unless exists $t->{$_}; $t = \%{$t->{$_}}; } } sub pre_traverse { my $t = shift; for my $k( sort keys %$t ) { print "$k "; pre_traverse( $t->{$k} ); } } sub post_traverse { my $t = shift; for my $k( sort keys %$t ) { post_traverse( $t->{$k} ); print "$k "; } } print "PRE: "; pre_traverse(\%tree), print "\nPOST: "; post_traverse(\%tree), print "\n", Dumper(\%tree), "\n"; __DATA__ aB1 aB2 aB4j aB8 aC3 aC50