One way to do pretty much what you're asking for relates to a reply above: what you can do is have an array of anonymous hashes, of the form:

my @array_of_hashes = ( {hashkey1=>$hashval1,
             hashkey2=>$hashval2},
            {hashkey1=>$hashval1,
             hashkey2=>$hashval2}
            ...
            );
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You access the individual hashes with syntax like:

# to modify what's in the second hash
$array_of_hashes[1]->{hashkey1} = "ay carumba!";
# $array_of_hashes[1]{hashkey1} would also work!

# to iterate over the hashes

foreach my $hashref (@array_of_hashes) {
# $hashref is now a reference to one of the hashes in @array _of_hashe
+s
# we need to de-reference to go through the keys of the hash
    foreach (keys %$hashref) {
        print "$_ => ", $hashref->{$_}, "\n";
    }
}
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HTH

Philosophy can be made out of anything -- or less