my %dataoptions = ( "Gender", ["Male", "Female"] ); #### my %dataoptions = ( "Gender" => ["Male", "Female"] ); #### ["Male", "Female"] #### foreach $option ($dataoptions{$columns[$i]}) #### for ($i = 0; $i < @columns; $i++) { print $columns[$i].': '; my $arrayref = $dataoptions{$columns[$i]}; foreach $option (@$arrayref) { print ' '.$option.' '; } }