should do it

No, it shouldn't. @{...} expects that ... retunrns a reference to an array. values %hash does not.

anyway short of iterating through the entire hash.

What do you think values does? Returns a list obtained by iterating through the entire hash.

And whatever processes the list returned by value has to iterate over that list.

These work: 

# time = O(N)   memory = O(N*M)

my $count = map @$_, values %h;

[download]
# time = O(N)   memory = O(N)

my $count = sum map { scalar @$_ } values %h;

[download]
# time = O(N)   memory = O(N)

my $count = 0;
$count += @$_ for values %h;

[download]
# time = O(N)   memory = O(1)

my $count = 0;
while (my ($k, $v) = each(%h)) {
   $count += @$v;
}

[download]

Update:
Added 2nd and 4th solution.
Added time and memory analysis.
Choose the one that's the most readable and maintainable within your speed and memory requirements.

In reply to Re: Count of HoA elements by ikegami
in thread Count of HoA elements by sweetblood

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.