my @fields; my $uuts = {}; while(<$fh>) { chomp; next if !-e "/tmp/files/$_.json"; my $decoded = decode_json( read_file("/tmp/files/$_.json") ); push @fields, $decoded; } $uuts->{People} = [ @fields ]; #### my $uuts; while (<$fh>) { chomp; next if ! -e "/tmp/files/$_.json"; push @{$uuts->{People}}, @{decode_json(read_file("/tmp/files/$_.json"))}; } #### $ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le ' use Data::Dumper; my @jsons = ([{a=>1}, {b=>2}], [{c=>3}, {d=>4}]); my $combo; for (@jsons) { print Dumper $_; push @{$combo->{People}} => @$_; } print Dumper $combo; ' $VAR1 = [ { 'a' => 1 }, { 'b' => 2 } ]; $VAR1 = [ { 'c' => 3 }, { 'd' => 4 } ]; $VAR1 = { 'People' => [ { 'a' => 1 }, { 'b' => 2 }, { 'c' => 3 }, { 'd' => 4 } ] };