sub whatever
{
  my $self = shift;

  # ... do stuff to set ar_data...

  # Slice out the last element of each stored array into a new array
  my @last_elements;
  push @last_elements, $_->[$#_] for @{$ar_data};
  return \@last_elements;
}

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

# fill the 2-d array
my @data;
for ( 0..2 ) {
  push @data, [qw 'a bc def' ];
}

# try extracting last element from each stored array
my @for_data = slice_with_for ( @data );
my @map_data = slice_with_map ( @data );
my @sort_data = slice_with_sort ( @data );
my @grep_data = slice_with_grep ( @data );

# show the y-axis slices
print "for :  @for_data\n";
print "map :  @map_data\n";
print "sort:  @sort_data\n";
print "grep:  @grep_data\n";

exit;


sub slice_with_for
{
  my @slice_me = @_;
  my @last_fields;
  push @last_fields, $_->[2] for @slice_me;
  @last_fields;
}


sub slice_with_map
{
  my @slice_me = @_;
  return map { $_->[2] ? $_->[2] : () } @slice_me;
}


sub slice_with_sort
{
  my @slice_me = @_;
  sort { $a->[2] cmp $b->[2] } @slice_me;
}

sub slice_with_grep
{
  my @slice_me = @data;
  grep { $_->[2] } @slice_me;
}

exit;