#!/usr/bin/perl package MyClass; use strict; use warnings; sub new { my $class = shift; my $self = { menu_items => _quote_items(shift), }; bless $self,$class; } sub _quote_items { my $ar = shift; $_ = "'$_'" for @$ar; return $ar; } package main; use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my @array = ('Option 0','Option 1','Option 2','Option 3','Option 4'); my $obj = MyClass->new(\@array); print Dumper $obj;