foreach my $row (@AoA) { my @foo = break_up( $row ); if( $foo[0] =~ /ARRAY/ ) { push @new_rows, @foo; } else { push @new_rows, [ @foo ]; } } print Dumper(\@new_rows); sub break_up { my $row = shift; my $uses_newlines = 0; $uses_newlines++ if join( "", @$row ) =~ /\n/m; return @$row unless $uses_newlines; my @tmp; map { push @tmp, [ split /\n/ ] } @$row; my @row; for( my $i = 0; $i <= $#tmp; $i++ ) { for( my $j = 0; $j <= $#tmp; $j++ ) { $row[$i][$j] = shift @{$tmp[$j]}; } } return @row; }