How does hashes (%) affect performance or memory usage?

In Perl, hashes (associative arrays) are important data structures that allow you to store and retrieve key-value pairs efficiently. Their performance and memory usage can be influenced by various factors, including the size of the hash and the type of keys and values used.

Hashes consume more memory than simple arrays, as they require additional overhead for maintaining the key-value pairs, which can lead to performance issues when handling large datasets. However, they offer constant time complexity for lookups, insertions, and deletions, making them much faster than arrays in scenarios where quick access to values based on keys is essential.

It's essential to optimize the use of hashes by using appropriate keys and regularly assessing their size during the program's runtime to ensure efficient memory usage.

# Creating a hash in Perl my %hash = ( 'apple' => 'fruit', 'carrot' => 'vegetable', 'banana' => 'fruit', ); # Accessing a value print $hash{'apple'}; # Outputs: fruit

Perl hashes performance memory usage associative arrays

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