> How do the following attribute of a hash key:
> size (something like an alphanumeric
> string about 70 chars wide)
Longer strings take longer to hash, but 70
characters isn't massive. Hashing a string
takes time proportional to the length of the string.
> similarity (groups of about 30% of the keys are
> similar for the 1st n-10 characters)
Good hash algorithms perform well with similar keys...
sequences are common.
> affect the performance of:
> key listings (things like grep /pattern/, keys %hash)
Grep can be slow, especially with patterns. Keys
could be slow, especially if the dataset is large.
> key lookups (referencing $hash{$key})
Key lookups are done in O(log N), which is pretty
nippy even with large datasets.
If you have performance issues, why not whittle
down the problem to a small code section that
the list can play with?
I suspect changing the grep pattern will help
enormously.
Jonathan Paton
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