I agree with skyknight's method - just wanted to OO-ify it a bit.

Refer to "Class Data" in perltoot. You can store you %nodelist in the class (Not individual objects). Your object "new" method adds an object reference by doing:

   $nodelist{$NewObjectName}=$self;
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Your "connect" method can then easily access a named object and do something like:

   $self->{LEFT_LINK} = $nodelist{$NameOfLinkedNode};
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