Well, the list approach is what I would consider to be 'thinking outside of the box'. I see a hash and I think how to manipulate it. But as you have shown what I really should have been thinking is 'do you even need to pass around a hash at all?'. Also, Im not really sure why, but even though I know the list to hash idea, and use it occasionally, I almost never use it to kill duplicates, another example of getting stuck inside the box. :-) Again on a similar note I must must must remember that wonderful keyword values(). I use keys() all the time, but almost never use values().

What all this comes to is one of the most fascinating things about Perl. Even though you know ten ways to do things, and do them regularly, theres alway a command, module, or tactic (for lack of a better word) lurking off to the side of box. Occasionally you notice the item on your own, either through research or luck, but more often because someone elses box contained the item center stage. Which brings me to perlmonks. This is the place where you are practically guaranteed to learn something new, every day. And thats cause there are a bunch of people here who seem to think outside the box pretty often.

Thanks for the lesson Tye, chromatic (umm, everyone else as well :-) and good question kwof.

Yves
--
You are not ready to use symrefs unless you already know why they are bad. -- tadmc (CLPM)