sub string_to_struct {
 my $string = shift;

 my @refs = split /__/, $string;
 $string = "\$$refs[0]";
 for (1 .. $#refs) { $string .= "-> {'$refs[$_]'}" };

 return eval "\\$string"; # a ref, for reasons to do with not failing if eval "\$string" would be an array, hash, hashref etc.
}