#! perl -sw use 5.010; use strict; use List::Util qw[ reduce ]; $a = $b; ## disable Name "main::b" used only once: possible typo use Data::Dump qw[ pp ]; my %hash = map{ %{ +reduce{ +{ $b => ref( $a ) ? $a : [ split ' ', $a ] } } reverse split ':', $_ } } ; pp \%hash; __DATA__ gkey01:key1:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 gkey02:key1:key2:key3:1 2 3 4 gkey03:key1:key2:key3:key4:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 gkey04:key1:key2:key3:1 2 gkey05:key1:key2:key3:key4:1 2 gkey06:key1:key2:key3:key4:key5:1 2 3 gkey07:key1:key2:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 gkey08:key1:key2:key3:key4:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 gkey09:key1:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 gkey10:key1:1 2 3 4 5 6 gkey11:key1:1 2 3 4 gkey12:key1:key2:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 gkey13:key1:key2:key3:key4:1 2 3 4 gkey14:key1:key2:key3:1 2 gkey15:key1:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 gkey16:key1:key2:1 gkey17:key1:key2:key3:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 gkey18:key1:key2:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 gkey19:key1:key2:key3:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 gkey20:key1:key2:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9