package foo; sub new { my ($class) = shift; my $self = {}; # a ref to an anon hash $self->{some_scalar} = "blah"; $self->{an_array_of_arrays} = [ [01,02], [11,12], [21,22]]; bless ( $self , $class ); return $self; } #so when you do my $new_object = new foo; my $array_ref = $new_object->{an_array_of_arrays}; print $array_ref->[1][1];