#! perl -slw use strict; use Data::Dumper; my $d = [ [[1,2], [3,4]], [[5,6], [7,8]] ]; my %hash = map{ my $key = "@{ $_->[ 0 ] }"; $key => $_ } @{ $d }; print Dumper \%hash; __END__ C:\test>junk.pl $VAR1 = { '5 6' => [ [ 5, 6 ], [ 7, 8 ] ], '1 2' => [ [ 1, 2 ], [ 3, 4 ] ] };