use strict; use warnings; my %seen; my @array = (["1", "1", "3"], ["1", "5", "6"], ["1", "1", "3"]); my @unique = grep {! $seen{$_->[1]}++} @array; print "@$_\n" for @array; print "\n"; map {$_++} @$_ for @unique; print "@$_\n" for @array; print "\n";