> If this is the case then it seems counter intuitive at first glance, and maybe is something that could be modified.

Well - "if this is the case" - it's most probably for "historical reasons".

I could imagine exists came later and that was the easiest way to implement it, and the pay off for any redesign is too small.

You shouldn't forget that there is much more going on in the background which would need to be replicated, like autovivification and so on.

> One advantage of using exists

I'm not sure I can follow.

Cheers Rolf
(addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice

In reply to Re^3: "exists $hash{key}" is slower than "$hash{key}" by LanX
in thread "exists $hash{key}" is slower than "$hash{key}" by swl

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