You seem to have almost answered your own question in the asking of it, so maybe a different question is in order? What are you trying to achieve? That is, what is the big picture objective? Maybe you'd be better using a hash of arrays or, more likely, an array of hashes, or even an array of objects to manage your data?

my @everything = (\@fw, \@vlan, \@vrf, \@more);

for my $arrayRef (@everything) {
    theSub(@$arrayRef);
}
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seems to answer your immediate issue.

Or, more idiomatically:

my @everything = (\@fw, \@vlan, \@vrf, \@more);

foreach (@everything) {
    theSub(@$_);
}
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(or:  theSub($_); depending on your usage).

How is that more idiomatic? for and foreach are synonyms.

Perhaps the use of $_ instead of the named variable is what you're referring to, but I am not convinced that that is more idiomatic.

This is my call

  my (@fw, @vrf, @vlan, @portchannel);
  @fw = &collectData('fw', $CFG{$CFG{FW}});
  @vrf = &collectData('vrf', $CFG{$CFG{VRF}});
  @vlan = &collectData('vlan', $CFG{$CFG{VLAN}});
  @portchannel = &collectData('portchannel', $CFG{$CFG{PORTCHANNEL}});
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and this is the sub

sub collectData {
  my $str = shift;
  my $type = shift;
  my @array;
  my $content = &slurpFile($type);
  if ($CFG{READFILE} eq $CFG{ERROR}){ 
    print $CFG{ERROR_OPEN} = s/--file--/$type/ ,"\n";
    return;
  }
  $str =~ /^fw/          ? { @array = NT::FW->extract($content, %CFG) 
+}          :
  $str =~ /^vrf/         ? { @array = NT::VRF->extract($content, %CFG)
+ }         :
  $str =~ /^vlan/        ? { @array = NT::VLAN->extract($content, %CFG
+) }        :
  $str =~ /^portchannel/ ? { @array = NT::PORTCHANNEL->extract($conten
+t, %CFG) } :
          return;
return @array;
}
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How can I do this with less lines of code?

( Note the update:  @{$arr_hash{$_}} = collectData($_, $CFG{$CFG{ uc $_}});)

I reckon the calling program can go like this:

my (@fw, @vrf, @vlan, @portchannel);
my %arr_hash = (fw=> \@fw, vrf=> \@vrf, vlan =>\@vlan, portchannel => 
+\@portchannel);
  
  foreach (keys %arr_hash) {
    @{$arr_hash{$_}} = collectData($_, $CFG{$CFG{ uc $_}});
  }
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(not tested)

Helen

Having looked over your conversation with HelenCr, I think a slight step back is in order to focus on the key issue. The following code mocks up a solution to the issue of passing in a "module reference" to a "collection" sub to get some work done:

#!/usr/bin/env perl
use warnings;
use strict;

package FW;

sub extract {
    return "It's a FW";
}

package VRF;

sub extract {
    return "It's a VRF";
}

package main;

my @fw = collect('fw');
my @vrf = collect('vrf');

print "$_\n" for @fw, @vrf;

sub collect {
    my ($type) = @_;
    my $module = uc $type;
    
    return $module->extract();
}
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Prints:

It's a FW
It's a VRF
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The key is that if you want to call a function in a module you can use the syntax $modulename->function() to make the call.

Thank you, GrandFather.

So, in other words, are you saying that this should work?:

my @arr_methods = ([ \@fw, 'NT::FW', 'FW'], [\@vrf, 'NT::VRF', 'VRF'],
+ [\@vlan
+, 'NT::VLAN', 'VLAN'], [ \@portchannel, 'NT::PORTCHANNEL', 'PORTCHANN
+EL'] );

    foreach (@arr_methods) {
        @{$_->[0]} = $_->[1]->extract( &slurpFile($CFG{$CFG{$_->[2]}} 
+), %CFG)
+;
    }
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