note blazar <blockquote><i><c> sub bukNew ($) { my( $ref ) = @_; my @x = 0 .. $#$ref; @{ $ref }[ map splice( @x, rand @x, 1 ), @x ]; } </c></i></blockquote> <p>More and more interesting. But then, since <em>all</em> the other subs are <c>(@)</c>, why not simply the following?</p> <c> sub bukNew (@) { my @x = 0 .. $#_; @_[ map splice( @x, rand @x, 1 ), @x ]; } </c> <p>However some random tests with various string and list lengths seem to show that it could be considerably slower than <c>buk()</c>, by even as much as 40% or so. Thus... are you sure your benchmark is not flawed?</p> 625977 626155