it will work if $var looks something like this $var = ["A", 1] or @array = (1,2);$var = \@array; Try this: perl -le '$var = ["a","b",3]; print $var" it should print something like:ARRAY(0x224eb4) which is an array reference... so if you did this: perl -le '$var ="A","b",3; ($var1,$var2,$var3) = @{$var}; print "$var1, $var3,$var2";' all should be good with the world...