You wouldn't be able to assign directly to a hash slice like you do, you'd have to iterate. If using a hash of arrays I'd always use an array as the value, even if its only one value, will help keep the code simpler. You can loop through both arrays separately or combine them

for my $name ( @names_combined ) {
  push @{$emails{$name}}, shift(@emails_combined);
}
[download]

Sorry it didnt help, where in this sample code would your code go?

sub test {
    my (@names_all, @email_all);
    my @names = qw(Joe mary ann pete amy jerry Joe ann John John );
    my @email = qw(joe@test.com mary@test.com ann@nowhere.com
        pete@here.com amy@ok.com jerry@b.com joe@test.com ann@nowhere.
+com John@test.com John@ok.com);
    my %emails;

    my @names_combined = (@names,@names_all);
    my @emails_combined = (@email,@email_all);
    for my $name ( @names_combined ) {
       push @{$emails{$name}}, shift(@emails_combined);
    }

    return \%emails;

}
[download]

Not tested, but should get you going in the right direction. Maybe read some Perl tutorials or Learning Perl to get a better overall feel for the language.

                - Ant
                - Some of my best work - (1 2 3)