Hi Michael,
To answer your questions, If you want to know if there is already a
key with a certain value, you have to look through the entire hash.
However if you want to see if a given key exists, just do "if (exists
$hash{$key})". This will take constant time regardless of the number
of elements in your hash.
Hope this helps.
-Jason
On 1/18/07, Michael Alipio <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi,
Suppose I have a hash:
my %hash = (dog => 'house', pig => 'barn', bird=> 'cage');
Now I want to know if there is already a key with a 'house' value as I do not
want to create another key with the same value.
Is there any other faster way to do it than doing a
for (keys %hash){
if ($hash{$_} eq 'house'){
#found 'house'!
}
What if I got thousands of keys?
Lastly, how fast is the "if (exists $hash{$key})"? Is it faster than doing a
'for keys' loop, and testing if a given $_ key will appear?
Thanks.
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