I have the following list that is generated where the fist item it the child and the second item is the parent: b:a c:a d:b e:c f:c And it needs to look like this when I am done: +-b--d a -+ + +-e +-c-+ +-f Any help with this would be appreciated.

I'd suggest something along these lines... 

use Graph::Easy;
my $graph = Graph::Easy->new();
my @nodes=('b:a','c:a','d:b','e:c','f:c');
my ($child,$parent);

# build the graph
foreach my $node (@nodes) {
        ($child,$parent) = split(":",$node);
        $graph->add_edge($parent,$child);
}

# print the graph
print $graph->as_asciii();

[download]

I have no idea how to store this either.

Is there any reason you don't want to do this? 

# save the graph by saving the list of original nodes
open($filehandle,"<","nodes.dat") or die("Can't open file 'nodes.dat' 
+for writing: $!\n");
print $filehandle join("\n",@nodes);

[download]

--
Ytrew

In reply to Re^2: how to construct tree from parent pointer list by Anonymous Monk
in thread how to construct tree from parent pointer list by bfdi533

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