my @stack = { name => 'root', level => 0, children => [] };

foreach my $input ( @inputs ) {
    my @pieces = split /\s+\/\s+/, $input;
    my $level  = scalar @pieces;

    my $new_node = { name => pieces[-1], level => $level };

    if ( $level == $stack[-1]{level} ) {
        pop @stack;
    }
    elsif ( $level < $stack[-1]{level} ) {
        pop @stack while ( $level <= $stack[-1]{level} );
    }
    # else top level must be our parent
    push @stack[-1]{children}, $new_node;

    push @stack, $new_node
}
[download]

Phil

Hi. Thanks for the code, but it has an awful lot of syntax errors in it. Here is the corrected version:

foreach my $input ( @inputs ) {
    my @pieces = split /\s+\/\s+/, $input;
    my $level  = scalar @pieces;

    my $new_node = { name => $pieces[-1], level => $level };

    if ( $level == $stack[-1]->{level} ) {
        pop @stack;
    }
    elsif ( $level < $stack[-1]->{level} ) {
        pop @stack while ( $level <= $stack[-1]->{level} );
    }
    # else top level must be our parent
    push @{ $stack[-1]->{children} }, $new_node;

    push @stack, $new_node;
}
[download]

Anyways ... this works like a charm. Thanks a lot. :)

No, I am afraid I spoke too soon. This does not work at all. Your code produces the following:

$VAR1 = [
  {
    'level' => 0,
    'name' => 'root',
    'children' => [
      {
        'level' => 1,
        'name' => 'one',
        'children' => [
          {
            'level' => 2,
            'name' => 'bar'
          },
          {
            'level' => 2,
            'name' => 'baz',
            'children' => [
              {
                'level' => 3,
                'name' => 'two'
              },
              {
                'level' => 3,
                'name' => 'three'
              },
              {
                'level' => 3,
                'name' => 'four'
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        'level' => 1,
        'name' => 'five'
      }
    ]
  },
  $VAR1->[0]{'children'}[1]
];
[download]

'one' does not have any children.

Sorry, but this won't work for me either. Maybe this is a harder problem than I thought it would be.

Ok, I'm sorry I posted code in haste. I wasn't ever trying to give you code you could use. I was only trying to explain the goal. See this article, which I mentioned in passing. I know the code in it works, and there is explanation.

Phil