#! perl -sw use strict; use Data::Dump qw[ pp ]; my $h= { (4,-1), (2,6), (6,4), (3,5), (5,-1), (99,-1), }; my %invert; push @{ $invert{ $h->{ $_ } } }, $_ for keys %{ $h }; my %hh; for( @{ $invert{ -1 } } ) { my $ref = { $_, -1 }; while( exists $invert{ $_ } ) { my $key = pop @{ $invert{ $_ } }; $ref = { $key, $ref }; delete $invert{ $_ } unless @{ $invert{ $_ } }; $_ = $key; } my( $key, $value ) = each %$ref; $hh{ $key } = $value; } pp \%hh; __END__ c:\test>755232 { 2 => { 6 => { 4 => -1 } }, 3 => { 5 => -1 }, 9 => -1 }