in reply to non-scalar hash key

I could join the integer array into a string, and use that as the key, but I'm looking for something faster.

That makes no sense. If you want the key to represent all the integers in the array, you will have to join the integer into a key somehow. You can't possibly go faster than doing what you want to do and still have it do what you want it to do.

The only question is what's the fastest way to join the keys.