Hello perlmonks, this is my first post so I hope I am posting on the correct forum section. So it seems that when executing an "exists" call on a hash reference (to check whether the corresponding value exists) the amount of time needed to complete the call is significantly higher compared to the same operation performed on a normal hash (not a hash reference). Is this behavior expected? Please check the following simple code highlighting what I described. 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings;
use Time::Local;

my $range = 100000;
my $ITERS = 30000;
my (%HASH, $HASH_REF);
for(my $iter = 1; $iter <= $ITERS; $iter++){
    my $random_number = int(rand($range));
    $HASH{$random_number} = 1;
    $HASH_REF->{$random_number} = 1;
}
my $TIME = time;
for(my $iter = 1; $iter <= $ITERS; $iter++){
    my $random_number = int(rand($range));
    if( exists $HASH{$random_number} ){;}
}
my $ctime = time;
my $exec_time = $ctime - $TIME; 
print 'Hash search :'."$exec_time\n";

$TIME = time;
for(my $iter = 1; $iter <= $ITERS; $iter++){
    my $random_number = int(rand($range));
    if( exists {%{$HASH_REF}}->{$random_number} ){;}
}
$ctime = time;
$exec_time = $ctime - $TIME; 
print 'Hashref search :'."$exec_time\n";

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In reply to Hash reference searching by seggy

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