okay, Popcorn Dave, here's a little example, with comments. it's a little different from your example, but i think you can follow my example. if you're attempting data structures this complex, i hope you've read perlref, perlreftut, and perldsc.

i've used strict: don't code without it. it offers protection from many problems you might encounter during development.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

## constants: i don't like 'use constant MAX => 3;', so...
sub MAX() { 3 }
sub SLICE() { 0 .. 1 }

## create empty hash reference
##  ref to hash
my $table_ref = {};

## create some empty hashes
##  ref to hash of hashes
$table_ref->{$_} = () for( 0 .. MAX );

for( 0 .. MAX )
{
    if( $_ % 2 )
    ## ref to hash of hashes holds scalar value
    { $table_ref->{$_}{shape} = 'rect' }
    else
    ## ref to hash of hashes holds scalar value
    { $table_ref->{$_}{shape} = 'circle' }

    ## ref to hash of hashes dereferenced as array, assign list
    @{ $table_ref->{$_}{coords} } = ( 0 .. MAX );
}

for( sort keys %{ $table_ref } )
{
    print "Key: $_  Value: $table_ref->{$_}\n";
    print "Shape $table_ref->{$_}{shape}\n";
    ## ref to hash of hashes dereferenced as array, grab a slice
    print $_ for( @{ $table_ref->{$_}{coords} }[ SLICE ] );
    print "\n";
}
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~Particle *accelerates*