#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my $h = { word1 => [ ('a' .. 'c') ], word2 => [ ('d' .. 'f') ], }; push @{ $h->{word1} }, $h->{word2}; for my $word ( sort keys %$h ) { print "$word :\t"; for my $letter ( @{ $h->{$word} } ) { print ref $letter eq 'ARRAY' ? @$letter : $letter; } print "\n"; }