for my $item (@array) { print "We've got an array" if is_array($item); } sub is_array { my ($ref) = @_; # Firstly arrays need to be references, throw # out non-references early. return 0 unless ref $ref; # Now try and eval a bit of code to treat the # reference as an array. If it complains # in the 'Not an ARRAY reference' then we're # sure it's not an array, otherwise it was. eval { my $a = @$ref; }; if ($@=~/^Not an ARRAY reference/) { return 0; } elsif ($@) { die "Unexpected error in eval: $@\n"; } else { return 1; } }