use Benchmark; my @list; for ( 0..9999 ) { push @list, sprintf "%d", 100 * rand ; } timethese( 1000, { 'keys_map' => sub { my @uniq = keys %{{ map {$_ => 1} @list }}; }, 'grep_seen' => sub { my %seen; my @uniq = grep ! $seen{$_}++, @list; }, } ); #### Benchmark: timing 1000 iterations of grep_seen, keys_map... grep_seen: 13 wallclock secs (11.17 usr + 0.00 sys = 11.17 CPU) @ 89.52/s (n=1000) keys_map: 30 wallclock secs (29.28 usr + 0.00 sys = 29.28 CPU) @ 34.15/s (n=1000)