for each item in items: for each keyword in item.keywords: frequency{keyword}++ for each item in items: sort keywords by frequency push hierarchy{sorted keywords}, item #### item = 1, keywords = a b c item = 2, keywords = b c item = 3, keywords = d b #### a = 1, b = 3, c = 2, d = 1 #### b/c/2 b/c/a/1 b/d/3 #### my @items; push @items, { name => 1, keywords => [ qw( b ) ] }, { name => 2, keywords => [ qw( b c ) ] }, { name => 3, keywords => [ qw( b c ) ] }, { name => 4, keywords => [ qw( b d ) ] }, { name => 5, keywords => [ qw( e ) ] }, { name => 6, keywords => [ qw( e f ) ] }; my %freq; for (@items) { for (@{ $_->{keywords} }) { $freq{$_}++; } } my @nodes; for (@items) { my @keywords = sort { $freq{$b} <=> $freq{$a} } @{ $_->{keywords} }; my $path = join "/", @keywords, $_->{name}; push @nodes, $path; } print "$_\n" for sort @nodes