I have a properties file that is structured like the typical string=value where the string portion is formated like key1.key2...keyn

the problem is that I don't know the 'n' (how many key portions are in the string) and I'm looking for a way to be able to dynamincally handle it.

Here is a small sample of the properties file.. 

language_id.en_US=-1
language_id.es_US=-11
language_id.en_CA=-12
language_id.fr_CA=-13
langid.SPMEX=es_US
langid.FRCAN=fr_CA
altlang.US=SPMEX
altlang.CA=FRCAN
itemattr.newpart.seq=1
itemattr.newpart.name=New Part
itemattr.newpart.image1.en_US=newitem_icon.gif 
itemattr.newpart.image1.es_US=newitem_icon_sp.gif
itemattr.newpart.image1.en_CA=newitem_icon.gif
itemattr.newpart.image1.fr_CA=newitem_icon_fr.gif
itemattr.watersaver.seq=2
itemattr.watersaver.name=New Part
itemattr.watersaver.image1.en_US=newitem_icon.gif 
itemattr.watersaver.image1.es_US=newitem_icon_sp.gif
itemattr.watersaver.image1.en_CA=newitem_icon.gif
itemattr.watersaver.image1.fr_CA=newitem_icon_fr.gif

[download]
Here is the relevant section of my code that parses this file... 
my %properties;
my $propfilename = $opt{p} ? $opt{p} : "$FindBin::Bin/${FindBin::Scrip
+t}.properties";
print "reading properties from $propfilename\n" if $opt{v};
my $pfh = IO::File->new("<$propfilename") or die "unable to open prope
+rties file $propfilename, $!";
while (my $propline = <$pfh>) {
   next if $propline =~ /^#/;
   print $propline if $opt{V};
   chomp $propline;
   my ($key, $value) = split(/=/, $propline);
   my ($key1, $key2, $key3, $key4) = split(/\./, $key);

   if (defined $key4) {
      $properties{$key1}{$key2}{$key3}{$key4} = $value;
   }
   elsif (defined $key3) {
      $properties{$key1}{$key2}{$key3} = $value;
   }
   elsif (defined $key2) {
      $properties{$key1}{$key2} = $value;
   }
   elsif (defined $key1) {
      $properties{$key1} = $value;
   }

}
$pfh->close;

[download]
What I don't like is all the hard coding of handling n keys. As you can see I only hand up to four. Is there a better way to do this?

In reply to property file parsing by mifflin

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