Then why don't you use a hash too? which holds the keyword and the associated array? So you can limit the access?

Something like:

my %array_references = (myarray => \@MyArray, second_array => \@anothe
+r-array);
[download]

And somewhere else in your script:

my $reference = $array_references{lc $input};
print $reference->[0]; # (for example)
[download]

This gives you a higher control on what the world can access, and allows you to run the script under 'use strict'