That is called Symbolic reference and is illegal under use strict pragma. You have to temporary disable use strict and enable it again after the print statement. #!/usr/bin/perl @a = (1, 2, 3); @b = (4, 5, 6); @c = (7, 8, 9); $x = 'b'; no strict 'refs'; print "@$x\n"; use strict 'refs';