$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le ' # Braces denote an anonymous hash my $owner1Ref = { "name" => "Santa Claus", "DOB" => "1882-12-25", }; my $owner2Ref = { "name" => "Mickey Mouse", "DOB" => "1928-11-18", }; # Square brackets denote an anonymous array my $ownersRef = [ $owner1Ref, $owner2Ref ]; my %account = ( "number" => "12345678", "opened" => "2000-01-01", "owners" => $ownersRef, ); print $account{owners}[0]{name}; ' Santa Claus