The reason that it didn't work, is that you didn't follow the directions from eyepopslikeamosquito!

There is a difference between: ( paren , [ square bracket and { curly brace!

By using "(" you would get an array of arrays. When you add the extra [, you are adding an additional dimension to the structure and getting arrays of arrays of arrays. So you have to throw in an additional de-referencing operator. 

#!/usr/bin/perl
 use strict;
 use warnings;
 my @compass =
         (
             ["NW", "N", "NE"],
             ["W", "center", "E"],
             ["SW", "S", "SE"]
         );
         
my @compassB =
        ( [
             ["NW", "N", "NE"],
             ["W", "center", "E"],
             ["SW", "S", "SE"]
          ],
          [
             ["A", "B", "C"],
             ["D", "E", "F"]
          ]
         );         

 print $compass[0]->[1];       #prints N
 print $compassB[0]->[0]->[1]; #prints N
 print $compassB[1]->[0]->[1]; #prints B

 my $ref=\@compassB;  #added example with reference
 print $ref->[0]->[0]->[1];    #prints N

 my $firstAoA = $compassB[0];  
 print $firstAoA->[0][1];      #prints N

[download]
In a multi-dimensional structure everything is a reference until you get to the last thing which is the actual data.

In reply to Re^2: simple array question by Marshall
in thread simple array question by tw

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.