You'd probably be better served by an array for this, where you could just do: 
$array[int(rand(scalar(@array)))];

[download]
to choose a random element.

You can do much the same thing, though, by pulling the hash keys into a list and choosing one randomly: 

$hk = (keys %hash)[int(rand(scalar(keys %hash)))];
$hv = $hash{$hk};

[download]
If you'll do it often, pull the keys into an array and just use that: 
@arr = keys %hash;
$hk = $arr[int(rand(scalar(@arr)))];
$hv = $hash{$hk};

[download]

With both of the hash solutions, you end up with two copies of all the keys, so it's less memory-efficient than an array, but probably fine if you have a few thousand entries or less.

In reply to Re: Pulling random elements from hash by sgifford
in thread Pulling random elements from hash by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.