Global symbol "@returnArray" requires explicit package name at ./test.pl line 16. Execution of ./test.pl aborted due to compilation errors. #### #!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; use Data::Dumper; my %hash = { 'node_id' => '1', 'node_title' => 'whiskey', 'node_author' => 'otis', 'node_content' => 'the path to wisdom is littered with empty bottles', }; my $returnArray; push @{$returnArray}, \%hash; print Dumper(${$returnArray}[0]{node_content});