As others have aluded to, you cannot pass an array to a subroutine, only a list of scalar values. When you pass multiple arrays as mysub(@array1, @array2, @array3), the three arrays become concatenated into one big list. The solution is to use references to the arrays. Be careful that you copy the dereferenced array unless you want to change the values of the original array. Example: 

my @a1 = qw/a b c d e f g/;
my @a2 = qw/h i j k l m n/;


sub mysub { 
    my ($r1, $r2) = @_;
    
    # make a copy of the first array
    my @a1_copy = @{ $r1 };
    $a1_copy[2] = 'blah';   # only affects this copy

    # tweak the original @a2
    $r2->[2] = 'blah;   # affects @a2

}

mysub(\@a1, \@a2);

[download]

In reply to Re: getting arrays into subroutines by mfriedman
in thread getting arrays into subroutines by Mahoota

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.