my %adjacency_list = ( 1 => [2,5,6], 2 => [1,3,5,6,7], 3 => [2,4,6,7,8], 4 => [3,7,8], 5 => [1,2,6,9,10], 6 => [1,2,3,5,7,9,10,11], 7 => [2,3,4,6,8,10,11,12], 8 => [3,4,7,11,12], 9 => [5,6,10,13,14], 10 => [5,6,7,9,11,13,14,15], 11 => [6,7,8,10,12,14,15,16], 12 => [7,8,11,15,16], 13 => [9,10,14], 14 => [9,10,11,13,15], 15 => [10,11,12,14,16], 16 => [11,12,15] ); sub find_path { my ($start_at, $length, $been_there) = (@_, {}); if ($length <= 1) { return [$start_at]; } else { my @try_these = grep { ! $been_there->{$_} } @{$adjacency_list{$start_at}}; return map { my @cdr_list = find_path($_, $length-1, {%$been_there, $start_at => 1}); map [$start_at, @$_], @cdr_list; } @try_these; } } # Example usage: print "@$_\n" for (find_path(3, 3));