#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my $doc = {Result => {first => 1, second => 2} #['first', 'second'] }; my @list; if (ref $doc->{Result} eq "HASH") { @list = keys %{$doc->{Result}}; } elsif (ref $doc->{Result} eq "ARRAY") { @list = @{$doc->{Result}}; } else { @list = (); } for (@list) { print "$_\n"; } #### first second