#! /usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $x = 0; my %values; my @lines; my $lineNumber =0; my %parentHash; my @values; for ($x=1; $x<=6; $x += 1) { open (OUT, "<", "server$x"); while () { chomp; @lines = split(" ", $_); push (@{$parentHash{"server$x"}[$lineNumber]}, @lines); $lineNumber += 1; } $lineNumber = 0; close OUT; } #file line my @derefencedArray = @{$parentHash{"server2"}[2]}; print STDERR "@derefencedArray\n";