The order in which keys are returned by keys/each/value are supposed to be random (not crypotgraphically random, but explicity coded as random, with the random factor being different for each run (see PERL_HASH_SEED).

If they are, then my perl is quite buggy.

I ran perl -MData::Dumper -we 'print Dumper \%ENV' a few times, both with perl 5.8.8 and 5.10.0 (on Debian Etch i386), and I always got the same order.

(And this is no Data::Dumper artifact - it works with join ", ", keys %ENV as well.)

It is true that you shouldn't rely on a particular hash order, but it doesn't mean a randomized order is guaranteed.

In reply to Re^2: Random hash element (low memory edition). by moritz
in thread Random hash element (low memory edition). by amarquis

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