$ perl hashmath.pl @times has 4 elements $VAR1 = [ '2014-06-01 00:00:00', '2014-06-02 00:00:00', '2014-06-03 00:00:00', '2014-06-04 00:00:00' ]; Subtracting 2014-06-01 00:00:00 from 2014-06-02 00:00:00 Subtracting 2014-06-01 00:00:00 from 2014-06-03 00:00:00 Subtracting 2014-06-01 00:00:00 from 2014-06-04 00:00:00 @times has 3 elements $VAR1 = [ '2014-06-02 00:00:00', '2014-06-03 00:00:00', '2014-06-04 00:00:00' ]; Subtracting 2014-06-02 00:00:00 from 2014-06-03 00:00:00 Subtracting 2014-06-02 00:00:00 from 2014-06-04 00:00:00 @times has 2 elements $VAR1 = [ '2014-06-03 00:00:00', '2014-06-04 00:00:00' ]; Subtracting 2014-06-03 00:00:00 from 2014-06-04 00:00:00 $