Your first snippet is close, but thingy is a an array/list, not a hash/dictionary, so you need to index the very first item in that array/list, which is a hash/dictionary:

name = thingy[0]['albums'][0]['title']

my $name = $thingy->[0]{albums}[0]{title};
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For your second snippet, you will need to loop through each hash/dictionary that is contained inside the 'album' array/list:

for a in thingy[0]['albums'] : a['year'] = 1999

$_->{year} = 1999 for @{$thingy->[0]->{albums}};
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As you can see, you don't need a counter, you only need to process each element at a time. Perl and Python are both good about giving the coder 'ease of iteration'. ;)

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)