@matrix =([1,5,7],
          [2,3,4],
          [5,1,9],
          [7,8],
          [3]);

for my $y(0..$#matrix) {
    my @row=@{$matrix[$y]};
    for my $x(0..$#row) {
        print "Value $row[$x] at x $x y $y\n";
    }
}
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Update: tphyahoo feels that the syntax would be more obvious if I used only array references here instead of arrays and I sorta agree (I think it runs the risk of encouraging cargo cult programming, because someone who doesn't understand references can think they know what's going on without understanding the underlying data structure), so here's a version with just references:

$matrix =[
            [1,5,7],
            [2,3,4],
            [5,1,9],
            [7,8],
            [3]
          ];

for my $y(0..$#{$matrix}) {
    for my $x(0..$#{$matrix->[$y]}){
        print "Value $matrix->[$y]->[$x] at y $y x $x\n";
    }
}
[download]

You may also be interested in PDL if you really do want a matrix in the mathematical sense and are planing to do Real Math™ with it.

I thought I would give a little more information on what is going on in the example above. The matrix is a array of array references. Each ref is not restricted to the size of the other refs. you can also resize arrays by adding more members or removing them. for further reading i would suggest reading the perlref. Hopefully this was helpful.

Well, all you need to do to use the same syntax with my solution is

$table=\@matrix;
[download]


Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian W. Kernighan

True. And thanks for pointing that out, enlightening. However, I still feel like

my $matrix =[ [1,5,7],
                [2,3,4],
                [5,1,9],
                [7,8],
                [3]
              ] ;
[download]

feels more "aesthetically" right than setting it up with @matrix like you did above, and then $matrix = \@matrix... even if both are equivalent.

Hi. Your question isn't really clear to me, but I guess you want a cartesian product. For example, with the input you gave, I think you want the output

1 5 7
1 5 4
1 5 9
1 3 7
1 3 4

...
3 8 4
3 8 9
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use warnings; use strict;
sub cartesian_product {
        @_ or return [];
        my @last = @{pop()};
        map { my @x = @$_; map { [@x, $_] } @last } cartesian_product(
+@_);
}
my @columns = ([1, 2, 5, 7, 3], [5, 3, 1, 8], [7, 4, 9]);
my @r = cartesian_product(@columns);
for (@r) {
        print join(" ", @$_), "\n";
}
__END__
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