In the following runs of the test code below, when

• $K = 1e2, $L == 2 and the random keys produced have length 2.
• $K = 1e4, $L == 4 and the keys produced have length 4.
• But when $K = 1e3, $L == 3 as expected, but the random keys have length 2?

Maybe I'm having a "thick" day today, but for the life of me, I cannot see why?

C:\test>junk0 -K=1e2
K:1e2 L:2
bd => 21537
ux => 27554
su => 32707
db => 10843
fe => 3691
aj => 23335
co => 12919
br => 21357
xw => 15950
hd => 24808

C:\test>junk0 -K=1e3
K:1e3 L:3
ne => 32586
qz => 4931
sp => 30318
tr => 9694
gl => 21489
hn => 6456
xx => 24771
sf => 3369
ro => 27152
pv => 1438

C:\test>junk0 -K=1e4
K:1e4 L:4
alof => 16425
tjtd => 16200
pief => 25920
nlly => 18027
oezy => 19290
eyzv => 5510
ztxl => 11976
yqbz => 8356
hoym => 6193
exid => 29312
[download]

The code (run as perl -s scriptname -K=nnn):

#! perl -slw
use strict;

sub rndStr{ join'', @_[ map{ rand @_ } 1 .. shift ] }

sub log10{ log( $_[0] ) / log( 10 ) }

our $K ||= 1e3;
our $L ||= log10( $K );

print "K:$K L:$L";

my %hash;

$hash{ $_ } = int rand 32767 for map{ rndStr( $L, 'a'..'z' ) } 1 .. $K
+;

print "$_ => $hash{ $_ }" for ( keys %hash )[ 0 .. 9 ];
[download]

'Unthick' me please :)