Hi Monks, I am new to Perl and have been writing a text based log file scanner. It has been fairly straightforward to produce something quickly until now where I have a requirement to implement an other than rudimentary structure from the log data . I am at a decision point as to whether to continue with Perl or not and to complete this using a compiled language.

The problem I have is that I am attempting to build up a structure at runtime using hashes. The log itself is implemented in my Perl script as a hash whose keys are from the root column below. I want each root key value to be a hash of parent keys associated with the root key. Current keys have a similar hierarchical relationship with parent values and have a hash with duration and function name keys associated with them. I need to get at the duration and function name for any root, parent, current key. I need to navigate down the tree from the root to get at these values and want to read the file line by line at runtime and build the structure simultaneously.

I could write this in C++ or C or any compiled language where there is explicit memory allocation, variable initialisation and I could use pointers/references to make it perform etc. I would prefer to complete it in Perl, if possible. The data below is not the real data but is fairly representative of the type of thing I can expect. The keys especially are much longer strings and can contain both alphas and numerics.
@lines = 
(
#              ?,    root  , parent, current, duration, function name
#              0,    1     , 2        , 3         , 4        , 5
     ["1",   "2",   "3",     "4",       "100" ,   "A" ] ,
     ["10", "20", "30",   "40",      "200" ,   "B" ] ,
     ["11", "21", "31",   "41",      "300" ,   "C" ] ,
     ["12", "22", "32",   "42",      "400" ,   "D" ] ,
     ["13", "23", "33",   "43",      "500" ,   "E" ] ,
     ["13", "23", "33",   "53",      "600" ,   "F" ] ,
     ["13", "23", "33",   "63",      "700" ,   "G" ] ,
     ["13", "23", "34",   "73",      "800" ,   "H" ] ,
     ["13", "23", "34",   "83",      "900" ,   "I" ] ,
     ["13", "24", "35",   "93",      "1000" ,   "J" ] ,
     ["13", "24", "36",   "103",    "1100" ,   "K" ] 
     ) ;

[download]
I am using the ActiveState version of Perl on win2K but the program will eventually run on Solaris. A previous version I have developed in this way is currently running.

Am I using the right tool for this in Perl? I have some sample test code and output, would it be of any use if I posted this too?
Can someone offer some help or direction to some help.

Thanks
Pat

Edit by castaway, added code tags

In reply to Hashes by flemi_p

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