My initial reaction is to ask why you're doing it this way? Arrays and list indexes are not your friend, usually. Hashes, on the other hand, are:

use strict;
use warnings;

my %entity = (
  A1 => {
    customerID   => '007',
    ssn          => '999-99-9999',
    relationship => 'self',
  },
  B1 => {
    customerID   => '008',
    ssn          => '888-88-8888',
    relationship => 'spouse',
  },
  C1 => {
    customerID   => '009',
    ssn          => '777-77-7777',
    relationship => 'son',
  },
);

foreach my $e (keys(%entity)) {
  print "$e\n";
  print "$entity{$e}{'customerID'}\n";
  print "$entity{$e}{'ssn'}\n";
  print "$entity{$e}{'relationship'}\n";
}
[download]

And for that matter, this code could be improved, but you're starting to get the idea- you might want to change the primary key away from entity to customerID, for example, but it still largely holds. You're doing a lot of data thrashing, but not what I assume your intended goals are.

If you want to continue using arrays, I definitely suggest you follow jeffa's approach, then.

As far as putting them into a table for referencing purposes, depending on what you mean, I may have just done that for you. If you're looking to put them in a database, you should check out DBI.

As far as what's causing your problems, I can't tell from the code you presented above. At a glance, it looks like it should work.

Hope this helps!

--jwest

-><- -><- -><- -><- -><-
All things are Perfect
    To every last Flaw
    And bound in accord
         With Eris's Law
 - HBT; The Book of Advice, 1:7

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