#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

my $datafile = "data.txt";

open(FILE,$datafile);
foreach my $line (<FILE>) {

    #Kill linefeeds/returns. Data generated on variety of OS's
    $line =~ s/\n//g;
    $line =~ s/\r//g;

    my @items = split(/--/,$line);

    my $foo = &bhash(\%shash,@items);

    @shash{keys %$foo} = values %$foo;
    
}
close(FILE);

print Dumper \%shash;

sub bhash {
    my($hash,@keys )= @_;
    my $ref= \$hash;
    map($ref= \$$ref->{$_}, @keys);

    return $$ref;
}