$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -le ' use Data::Dumper; my @jsons = ([{a=>1}, {b=>2}], [{c=>3}, {d=>4}]); my $combo; for (@jsons) { print Dumper $_; push @{$combo->{People}} => @$_; } print Dumper $combo; ' $VAR1 = [ { 'a' => 1 }, { 'b' => 2 } ]; $VAR1 = [ { 'c' => 3 }, { 'd' => 4 } ]; $VAR1 = { 'People' => [ { 'a' => 1 }, { 'b' => 2 }, { 'c' => 3 }, { 'd' => 4 } ] };