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";