I'm not actually sure why you need the @ at all. I believe that what you probably want is $data[$i]->{"whatever"}. It looks to me as though the poster thinks that the @ is needed because @data is and array (native php coder?). The use of ->{"something"} tells me that $data[$i] contains a hashref, not an array ref. Even if $data[$i] was an array ref, you'd only need the @ to either a. dereference the array, or b. use an array slice.