/me mutters something along the lines of "Why didn't I think of that?" :)

Anyhow, I went as far as 2000x2000 and got the following results: 

return hash takes: 32 secs
return hash REF takes: 11 secs

[download]
This demonstrates that hash REFs do indeed run much faster. I suppose that returning a regular hash requires that the interpreter copy the data structure... likely doubling the memory required to keep the data structure memorized.

Thanks a lot, I do believe I have got an answer to my "problem".

In reply to Re: Re: Subroutines: Returning a hash vs. hash reference by mt2k
in thread Subroutines: Returning a hash vs. hash reference by mt2k

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