#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Data::Dumper; my %result; for my $l () { chomp $l; my ($cod, $desc) = split ' ', $l, 2; my @parts = split //, $cod; my $key = ''; my $hash = \%result; while (1) { $key .= shift @parts; if (@parts) { if ( ref $hash->{ $key } ) { $hash = $hash->{ $key }; } else { $hash = ( $hash->{ $key } = +{ 0 => $hash->{ $key } } ); } } else { if ( defined $hash->{ $key } ) { $hash->{ $key }->{ 0 } = $desc; } else { $hash->{ $key } = $desc; } last; } } } print Dumper \%result; __DATA__ 1 ITEM 11 Sub Item 1 111 Item X 112 Item 1121 Another Item 11212 And Another Item 12 Sub Item 2