I didn't read your code in detail, but when de-referencing a subscript'ed thing, you need to use {} to show "@" what it is operating upon, eg.. @{$fldref[3]}. If $fldref is just a single ref, then @$fldref works. But this doesn't work if $fldref has a subscript.

Aha. So perhaps I expected the @ in @$fldref[] to operate on the whole thing, whereas I need the @{} to point out the subscript should be on the inside to (de)refer to the right array...

I admit I don't always immediately understand in complex variable statements which @{(@$var[3])->[0]}[3] subscript applies to which part... At one point 2 3 4 levels deep with one single ref, the whole operator precedence becomes a bit confusing.

Thanks for the help.

Shouldn't  foreach (@$fldref[3]) {} automatically use the referenced array or spit out a warning about passing a single ref?

But why does Dump show "a", "b", "c", "d" and not \"a", "b", "c", "d"? It seems to show an ordinary array. You don't need to dereference anything in the following basic array:

[
   "anna",
   "beth",
   "christie",
   "denise",
]

foreach my $girl (@arr) {
  print "$girl\n";
}
[download]

... and if it's a ref to an array instead of an array itself, shouldn't Dump show \... in my original post? It looks as if it's an ordinary by-value array because there's no slash in front of it to point out it's a reference.

Thanks!

See Re^3: foreach doesn't select array element below.