#!/usr/bin/perl -w package main; use strict; my %dep; while () { my @tasks = split '\s+', $_; my $key = shift @tasks; $dep{$key} = [@tasks]; } ## check for circular dependencies. foreach my $k (keys %dep) { foreach my $item (@{$dep{$k}}) { ## is $k in the list for $dep{$item}? my $circ = 0; foreach (@{$dep{$item}}) { $circ++ if $_ eq $k } die "Circular reference on $k => $item" if $circ; } } ## sort tasks by least number of deps (exec 0-dep tasks first) my @ord_tasks = sort { scalar(@{$dep{$a}}) <=> scalar(@{$dep{$b}}) } keys %dep; ## "execute" each task, forking for dependencies. my %exec_hist; foreach my $task (@ord_tasks) { exec_task($task, \%exec_hist, \%dep) } sub exec_task { my $task = shift; my $history = shift; my $dep_hash = shift; my $level = shift; my %dep = %$dep_hash; defined $level or $level = 0; return if exists $history->{$task}; $history->{$task} = undef; print "Analyze $task:\n"; foreach ( @{$dep{$task}} ) { #~ print "\n"; next if exists $history->{$_}; print ">" for 0..$level; exec_task($_, $history, $dep_hash, $level+1); } print "." for 0..$level-1; print "EXEC($task)\n" } __DATA__ Task1 Task2 Task3 Task2 Task6 Task4 Task3 Task6 Task4 Task5 Task2 Task3 #### Analyze Task4: EXEC(Task4) Analyze Task6: EXEC(Task6) Analyze Task5: >Analyze Task2: .EXEC(Task2) >Analyze Task3: .EXEC(Task3) EXEC(Task5) Analyze Task1: EXEC(Task1)