#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; my @data_array; while(){ chomp; push @data_array, [split(/,/,$_)]; } my $data = \@data_array; print "$data->[0][0]\n"; __DATA__ 3 10,10 10,10,3 10,10,3,3 10,10,3,2,3 10,10,3,3,3,3 10,10,7,10,7,8,10