According to Advanced Perl Programming, I see that hash keys always employ the string representation.

I have a hash with integer keys -- lots of (sparse) integer keys. I am running into a memory limitation. Could I save memory by storing the MIME::Base64 version of the integer key? (Or perhaps using pack to create a 4-byte or 8-byte string.)

Thanks!

In reply to are perl hash keys always strings? by Anonymous Monk

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