use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my @aoa = ( [ qw( CR 161508 111847 151085 190251 ) ], [ qw( CR 161509 111847 190251 190252 ) ], [ qw( CR 161510 111847 190252 190150 ) ], [ qw( CR 161511 111847 190150 190153 ) ] ); print "orig aoa: @aoa\n"; print Dumper( \@aoa ), "\n"; my @spliced = splice( @aoa, 1, 1 ); print "spliced aoa: @aoa\n"; print Dumper( \@aoa ), "\n"; print "spliced: @spliced\n"; print Dumper( \@spliced ), "\n"; #### orig aoa: ARRAY(0x183f064) ARRAY(0x18350e8) ARRAY(0x1835190) ARRAY(0x1835238) $VAR1 = [ [ 'CR', '161508', '111847', '151085', '190251' ], [ 'CR', '161509', '111847', '190251', '190252' ], [ 'CR', '161510', '111847', '190252', '190150' ], [ 'CR', '161511', '111847', '190150', '190153' ] ]; spliced aoa: ARRAY(0x183f064) ARRAY(0x1835190) ARRAY(0x1835238) $VAR1 = [ [ 'CR', '161508', '111847', '151085', '190251' ], [ 'CR', '161510', '111847', '190252', '190150' ], [ 'CR', '161511', '111847', '190150', '190153' ] ]; spliced: ARRAY(0x18350e8) $VAR1 = [ [ 'CR', '161509', '111847', '190251', '190252' ] ];