With AoAs something like: 
my $ar = [ [ 'HEAD_goes_here', 'BODY_here' ],
           [ 'FOOT', 'FOOT', 'FOOT', 'FOOT' ]
];

[download]
written as a template with the literals as documentation. After the not-finding and the not-thinking, I wrote a sub to walk AoAs and extract the references to the scalar elements. Doing it by hand, one might write: 
 my $scalars_flattened = [ \$ar->[0][0], \$ar->[0][1],
     \$ar->[1][0], \$ar->[1][1], \$ar->[1][2], \$ar->[1][3] ];

[download]
Its gist: 
 my @flat = @{$_[0]};
 while ( List::Util::any { 'ARRAY' eq ref $_ } @flat ) {
        @flat = map { 'ARRAY' eq ref $_ ? \(@$_) : \$_ } @flat;
        @flat = map { 'REF' eq ref $_   ? $$_    : $_ } @flat;
 }

[download]
Fortunately only in testing did I find the less helpfully shaped templates like: 
 $ar = [ 'HEAD', 'BODY', [ 'FOOT', 'FOOT', 'FOOT', 'FOOT'], ];

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I would die if I had one like that.

Be well,
rir

In reply to "Nonliteral literal" is just an expression. by rir

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