my %bigHash my @Arraybits do this a few times { @Arraybits = ["data","that","is","unique", "for","each","loop"]; my @tmparray = @Arraybits; until (We have done this a few times) { push @{ $bigHash {$Key} }, \@tmparray; #OR push @{ $bigHash {$Key} }, [@tmparray]; } @tmpxmlarray = []; undef (@tmpxmlarray); }