I wish to process a text file (a couple hundred lines long), which represents a category structure using leading tabs, 
cat1
    cat1,sub1
        cat1,sub1,sub-sub1
    cat1,sub2
cat2
cat3
    cat3,sub1

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and put it into a mysql table in the following format. 
------------------------------------
| id | name               | parent |
------------------------------------
| 1  | cat1               | 0      |
| 2  | cat1,sub1          | 1      |
| 3  | cat1,sub1,sub-sub1 | 2      |
| 4  | cat1,sub2          | 1      |
| 5  | cat2               | 0      |
| 6  | cat3               | 0      |
| 7  | cat3,sub1          | 6      |
------------------------------------

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I know there's a maximum of 6 'tab's at the start of any line, so there's a maximum of 7 levels of categories.
I tried using seven variables $a = $b = $c = $d = $e = $f = $g = 0 and a nest of seven for loops... and ended up with something very messy.
I'm sure there must be a way to do this that doesn't rely on me knowing the max depth.
My thinking so far has been to get the data into an array-of-array's, such as 
my @x =
('cat1',
  ['cat1,sub1',
    ['cat1,sub1,sub-sub1'],
   'cat1,sub2'],
 'cat2',
 'cat3',
  ['cat3,sub1'],
);

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Then 'walk' it in some such way as, 
$x[0] is SCALAR    1/0 (id/parent)
$x[1] is ARRAY
$x[1][0] is SCALAR    2/1
$x[1][1] is ARRAY
$x[1][1][0] is SCALAR    3/2
$x[1][1][1] isn't defined
$x[1][2] is SCALAR    4/1
$x[1][3] isn't defined
$x[2] is SCALAR    5/0
$x[3] is SCALAR    6/0
$x[4] is ARRAY
$x[4][0] is SCALAR    7/6
$x[4][1] isn't defined
$x[5] isn't defined

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and somehow assign those id/parent variables.
I just can't figure out how to do this and would appreciate any help or hints of how to approach it.

In reply to build mysql data structure from text file by fireartist

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