Call me crazy, but wouldn't this be a much more simple solution? This results in your 5 random elements from the array being the 5 elements in %hash; 
my %hash;
my @array = ('one','two','three','four','five','six','seven','eight','
+nine','ten','eleven','twelve','thirteen','fourteen','fifteen');

while ((scalar keys %hash) < 5) {
    my $r = $array[rand(@array)];
    $hash{$r} = $r;
}

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In reply to Re: random elements from array - new twist by Theseus
in thread random elements from array - new twist by felwick

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