use strict; use warnings; my %UH; $UH{'k1'} = 1; # hash contains 1 item $UH('k2'} = 1; # hash contains 2 items $UH{'k1'} = 1; # at this point the hash still contains 2 items for my $k (sort keys %UH){ print "Hash contains key '$k'\n"; } #### use strict; use warnings; my @items = ('ü','ü','ä', 'Ä'); my @unique_items = sort keys %{ {map { $_ => 1 } @items} }; print "@unique_items\n";