[Phoenix-pm] Multi-level hash - quick key reference?

[Metz, Bobby W, WWCS]

All,
	I'm looking for a quicker method of accessing elements in a multi-level hash.  For example, the hash will have values like so

$hash{1}{2}{3} = "Hello World";
$hash{1}{3}{4}{5} = "the quick brown fox";

The input to the program comes from another I can't control which will ouput values like so:

.1.2.3<tab>Hello World
.1.3.4.5<tab>the quick brown fox

Parsing the values is cake, but what I'm looking for is a faster way to get values in/out of the hash using the ".1.2.3".  Is there some method that allows for arbitrary hash levels without coding using for loops?  I mean clearly recursion would solve this but I was hoping there was something more simple.  Or is recursion the only answer.  I was hoping for something like this, but I know this example doesn't work.  I've searched for a bit but I must be asking the right questions of mighty google.

$index = ".1.2.3";
$index =~ s/^\.//g;
$index =~ s/\./}{/g;
print $hash{$index} . "\n";

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Bobby