$ perl -le'
use Data::Dumper;
my @bigarray = (
    [ "123*jeff", "tortoise", "qwerty" ],
    [ "456*john", "parrot", "azerty" ],
    [ "789*jane", "budgie", "abcdef" ],
    );
print Dumper \@bigarray;
@bigarray = map [ map split( /\*/ ), @$_ ], @bigarray;
print Dumper \@bigarray;
'
$VAR1 = [
          [
            '123*jeff',
            'tortoise',
            'qwerty'
          ],
          [
            '456*john',
            'parrot',
            'azerty'
          ],
          [
            '789*jane',
            'budgie',
            'abcdef'
          ]
        ];

$VAR1 = [
          [
            '123',
            'jeff',
            'tortoise',
            'qwerty'
          ],
          [
            '456',
            'john',
            'parrot',
            'azerty'
          ],
          [
            '789',
            'jane',
            'budgie',
            'abcdef'
          ]
        ];