Correct; elements of Perl arrays and hashes must be scalars. One "converts" a variable (@array, %hash) into a reference to a variable by prefixing a backslash(\), so the reference to @array would be \@array. I believe that references can also point to subs, which means that one could have an array which has elements that are, variously, references to hashes, references to arrays, references to subs, references to scalars, and actual scalars.