gotta add the caveat about $a and $b -- i know this is example code, but don't use those variable names .. they are special global variables for sort

Can't tell if you really need hardcoded values or if you just flattened it for an example, but if the former you can just do (this should also help visualize the data structure):
use strict; use warnings; my @matrix = ( [ 1, 2, 3 ], [ 4, 5, 6 ], [ 7, 8, 9 ], ); use Data::Dumper; print Dumper \@matrix; print $matrix[1]->[2] . "\n"; # prints "6"

In reply to Re: simple matrix by davidrw
in thread simple matrix by steverippl

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.