#!/usr/bin/perl -l use strict; use warnings; my @paths; push @paths, [map {chomp; $_} split /\s*:\s*/] while ; my @pattern = @{pop @paths}; for my $part (@pattern) { my ($node, $dir) = split '', $part; for my $testPattern (@paths) { if ($dir eq '+') { next if $testPattern->[0] !~ $node; $part = $testPattern; last; } else { next if $testPattern->[-1] !~ $node; $part = [map {tr~+-~-+~; $_} reverse @$testPattern]; last; } } die "Can't match $part in '@pattern'\n" if 'ARRAY' ne ref $part; } print join ' : ', map {@$_} @pattern; __DATA__ A+ : B+ C+ : D- : E- C+ : E- #### C- : D+ : E+ : E+ : D+ : C-