perl - Dynamically creating an associative array of arrays -

i'm trying dynamically create associative array values arrays. current attempt follows i'm not sure if correct or efficent.

foreach $line (@lines)                               # read line text dictionary  {     chomp( $line );     my($word, $definition) = split(/\s/, $line, 2); #      $definition =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g ;                 # trim leading , trailing whitespace      if( exists $dict{$word} )     {         @array = $dict{$word};         $len = scalar @array;         $dict{$word}[$len] = $definition;     }     else     {         $dict{$word}[0] = $definition;     } } 

pretty sure works (can't test right now)

foreach $line (@lines)                               # read line text dictionary  {     chomp( $line );     my($word, $definition) = split(/\s/, $line, 2); #      $definition =~ s/^\s+|\s+$//g ;                 # trim leading , trailing whitespace      push @{$dict{$word}}, $definition;  } 

(using unshift instead of push put new entry on other side of other entries)