arrg! and for my final magic trick here it is without typos.. define variable a-ref = {a1 {1 2 3} a2}, b-ref = {b1 {4 5 6} b2}, c-ref = {c1 {7 8 9} c2}, ref-list = list(a-ref, b-ref, c-ref) print #a[list for refx in ref-list collect second(refx)]