No need for recursion if a simple loop suffices: 

    my ( $first, @subkeys ) = split /\./, $key;
    my $last = pop @subkeys;
    my $ref = $properties{$first} ||= {};
    $ref = $ref->{$_} ||= {} for(@subkeys);
    $ref->{$last} = $value;

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In reply to Re^2: property file parsing by rhesa
in thread property file parsing by mifflin

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