#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use Data::Dumper;

sub data_for_path {
  my $path = shift;
  if (-f $path or -l $path) {     #files or symbolic links
   return undef;
  }
  if (-d $path) {
    my %directory;
    opendir PATH, $path or die "cannot opendir $path: $!";
    my @names = readdir PATH;
    closedir PATH;
    for my $name (@names) {
     next if $name eq '.' or $name eq '..';
     $directory{$name} = data_for_path("$path/$name");
    }
    return \%directory;
  }
  warn "$path is neither a file nor a directory\n";
  return undef;
}

print Dumper(data_for_path('.'));