Hi, I just discovered this, and do not know if it's commonly used in golf (it's been a long time since I last played): if you only need a single hash in your script, you can use the symbol table itself.
Compare the classic "remove duplicate lines" one-liner perl -ne'$s{$_}++||print' file with perl -ne'$$_++||print' file Three characters in one shot! -- Philippe "BooK" Bruhat The learned man makes a mistake but once... but the truly stupid keep practicing until they get it right. (Moral from Groo The Wanderer #75 (Epic))