http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1063093


in reply to Minimize Hash Key Value Combinations

you could store your attributes in there own hash (or even an array), and then the relations can refer to the shorter keys

my %attrib = (key1 => 'xxxx', key2 => 'yyyy', ...); [a,b,c] => [key1,key2]; [d] => [keyn]; #etc

the keys can then be as short as you like, a simple count or even a hash of the data.