#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; # Defaults my @t = ( { 'label' => 'kept', 'value' => '0', }, { 'label' => 'notkept', 'value' => '0', }, { 'label' => 'repaired', 'value' => '0', }, ); # Create another structure (hash) to access the same data in a faster way my %faster_access; for my $valref (@t) { $faster_access{$valref->{'label'}} = $valref; } # Get this from another sub my $a = [ [ 'kept', '1', ], [ 'repaired', '3' ] ]; # Overwrite defaults for my $i ( @{ $a } ) { $faster_access{$i->[0]}{value} = $i->[1]; } warn Dumper( \$a ); warn Dumper( \@t );