Another way to do this, keeping the index of array as the number of the DATA SET 

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

use Data::Dumper;

my @records;

{
    local $/ = '>'; # record separator.

    while ( <DATA> )
    {
        push( @{$records[$1]}, split(/(?:\n+|>)/) )
            if ( s/DATA SET ([0-9]+)\n+// );
    }
}

print Dumper( \@records );


__DATA__
>DATA SET 1
1aHSAJDHSDHSADHDSALHDASLDHSALDH
1bHGDKJSHDSADHSALDHLHLDHASDLSAH
1cHKJAHCADHALIDHALSDHLSADHALHDA
>DATA SET 2
2aHSAJDHSDHSADHDSALHDASLDHSALDH
2bHGDKJSHDSADHSALDHLHLDHASDLSAH
2cHKJAHCADHALIDHALSDHLSADHALHDA
>DATA SET 3
3aHSAJDHSDHSADHDSALHDASLDHSALDH
3bHGDKJSHDSADHSALDHLHLDHASDLSAH
3cHKJAHCADHALIDHALSDHLSADHALHDA

[download]

Some extra juggling is done to clean output. This is what it looks like. 

:!./test.pl
$VAR1 = [
          undef,
          [
            '1aHSAJDHSDHSADHDSALHDASLDHSALDH',
            '1bHGDKJSHDSADHSALDHLHLDHASDLSAH',
            '1cHKJAHCADHALIDHALSDHLSADHALHDA'
          ],
          [
            '2aHSAJDHSDHSADHDSALHDASLDHSALDH',
            '2bHGDKJSHDSADHSALDHLHLDHASDLSAH',
            '2cHKJAHCADHALIDHALSDHLSADHALHDA'
          ],
          [
            '3aHSAJDHSDHSADHDSALHDASLDHSALDH',
            '3bHGDKJSHDSADHSALDHLHLDHASDLSAH',
            '3cHKJAHCADHALIDHALSDHLSADHALHDA'
          ]
        ];

[download]

Best Regards,
Wonko

In reply to Re: writing to arrays by Wonko the sane
in thread writing to arrays by Superman

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