http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=1175917

chris212 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

my %hash = ('a'=>'test'); my @arr = ($hash{'a'}); print \$hash{'a'}."\n"; print \$arr[0]."\n";
How can I do something like that, except re-use the same data rather than create a copy (same reference, not just same value)? I assume that would be faster? I know I can put the reference in the array, but the values need to be in the array so they can be passed to printf. The size of the array and the keys in the hash will vary. This code will be iterated millions of times, so I want it as fast as possible. The hash won't be used once the array is created, so I'm not concerned about the hash values being modified when the array values are.