A Hash is a dictionary-like collection of unique keys and their values. Also called associative arrays, they are similar to Arrays, but where an Array uses integers as its index, a Hash allows you to use any object type.

Hashes enumerate their values in the order that the corresponding keys were inserted.

A Hash can be easily created by using its implicit form:

grades = { "Jane Doe" => 10, "Jim Doe" => 6 }

Hashes allow an alternate syntax for keys that are symbols. Instead of

options = { :font_size => 10, :font_family => "Arial" }

You could write it as:

options = { font_size: 10, font_family: "Arial" }

Each named key is a symbol you can access in hash:

options[:font_size]  # => 10

A Hash can also be created through its ::new method:

grades = Hash.new
grades["Dorothy Doe"] = 9

Hashes have a default value that is returned when accessing keys that do not exist in the hash. If no default is set nil is used. You can set the default value by sending it as an argument to Hash.new:

grades = Hash.new(0)

Or by using the #default= method:

grades = {"Timmy Doe" => 8}
grades.default = 0

Accessing a value in a Hash requires using its key:

puts grades["Jane Doe"] # => 0

Common Uses

Hashes are an easy way to represent data structures, such as

books         = {}
books[:matz]  = "The Ruby Programming Language"
books[:black] = "The Well-Grounded Rubyist"

Hashes are also commonly used as a way to have named parameters in functions. Note that no brackets are used below. If a hash is the last argument on a method call, no braces are needed, thus creating a really clean interface:

Person.create(name: "John Doe", age: 27)

def self.create(params)
  @name = params[:name]
  @age  = params[:age]
end

Hash Keys

Two objects refer to the same hash key when their hash value is identical and the two objects are eql? to each other.

A user-defined class may be used as a hash key if the hash and eql? methods are overridden to provide meaningful behavior. By default, separate instances refer to separate hash keys.

A typical implementation of hash is based on the object’s data while eql? is usually aliased to the overridden

method:

class Book
  attr_reader :author, :title

  def initialize(author, title)
    @author = author
    @title = title
  end

  def ==(other)
    self.class === other and
      other.author == @author and
      other.title == @title
  end

  alias eql? ==

  def hash
    @author.hash ^ @title.hash # XOR
  end
end

book1 = Book.new 'matz', 'Ruby in a Nutshell'
book2 = Book.new 'matz', 'Ruby in a Nutshell'

reviews = {}

reviews[book1] = 'Great reference!'
reviews[book2] = 'Nice and compact!'

reviews.length #=> 1

See also Object#hash and Object#eql?

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August 14, 2008 - (v1_8_6_287)
11 thanks

Convert an Array to a Hash

The Hash.[] method converts an even number of parameters to a Hash. (The Hash[] method depends on the Hash class, but don’t confuse the method with the class itself). For example:

Hash['A', 'a', 'B', 'b']
# => {"A"=>"a", "B"=>"b"}

You can convert an array to a hash using the Hash[] method:

array = ['A', 'a', 'B', 'b', 'C', 'c']
hash = Hash[*array]
# => {"A"=>"a", "B"=>"b", "C"=>"c"}

The * (splat) operator converts the array into an argument list, as expected by Hash[].

You can similarly convert an array of arrays to a Hash, by adding flatten:

array = [['A', 'a'], ['B', 'b'], ['C', 'c']]
hash = Hash[*array.flatten]  
# => {"A"=>"a", "B"=>"b", "C"=>"c"}

This also comes in handy when you have a list of words that you want to convert to a Hash:

Hash[*%w(
  A a
  B b
  C c
)]
# => {"A"=>"a", "B"=>"b", "C"=>"c"}
May 2, 2009
8 thanks

Create a Hash from two Arrays

Here is my favorite idiom for creating a Hash from an Array of keys and an Array of values:

keys = [:a, :b]
values = [1,2]
h = Hash[*keys.zip(values).flatten]      # => {:b=>2, :a=>1}
May 17, 2010
2 thanks

Add has_keys? method to Hash class

class Hash

def has_keys?(*_keys)
  (_keys - self.keys).empty?
end

end

h = {1=>‘a’,2=>‘b’}

h.has_keys?(1,2) #-> true

h.has_keys?(1,3) #-> false

March 17, 2010
0 thanks

Create new Hash as subset of another a different way

or

only keys

old_hash = { :a => 'A', :b => 'B', :c => 'C', :d => 'D', :e => 'E', :f => 'F' }
only_keys = [ :a, :c, :f ]
new_hash = old_hash.delete_if { |k, v| !only_keys.include? k }

only values

old_hash = { :a => 'A', :b => 'B', :c => 'C', :d => 'D', :e => 'E', :f => 'F' }
only_values = [ 'A', 'D', 'G' ]
new_hash = old_hash.delete_if { |k, v| !only_values.include? v }

there are many ways to skin a cat :)

August 15, 2008
0 thanks

Convert a Hash to an Array of Arrays using map

Although you‘ll always have to_a and it‘s faster, this trick is too cool to ignore…

Convert a Hash to an Array of Arrays using Enumerable#map

June 13, 2010
0 thanks

keys to/from symbols

There’s probably a more effecient way to do this…

class Hash

def keys_to_strings
  res = {}
  self.keys.each do |k|
    if self[k].is_a?(Hash)
      res[k.to_s] = self[k].keys_to_strings
    else
      res[k.to_s] = self[k]
    end
  end
  return res
end

def keys_to_symbols
  res = {}
  self.keys.each do |k|
    if self[k].is_a?(Hash)
      res[k.to_sym] = self[k].keys_to_symbols
    else
      res[k.to_sym] = self[k]
    end
  end
  return res
end

end
June 13, 2010
0 thanks

Add requires!

Useful for methods that take options = {}

class Hash

def requires!(*params)
  params.each do |param| 
    raise ArgumentError.new("Missing required parameter: #{param}") unless self.has_key?(param) 
  end
end

end
June 13, 2011
0 thanks

Generalized Zip

My 5 cents.

I find trully useful this. Is a kind of generalized zip. You can combine 2 or more enumerables (arrays or others) of any size into a hash, array of arrays, .… The size of the result is the size of the bigest of the enumerables. For the shortests enumerables nil elements are used at the end.

# method compose
def compose(*enumerables)
  res=[]
  enumerables.map(&:size).max.times do
    tupla=[]
    for enumerable in enumerables
      tupla << enumerable.shift
    end
    res << (block_given? ? yield(tupla) : tupla)
  end
  res
end

some examples:

en1= [1, 2, 3, 4]
en2= ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']
en3= {:elem1 => "1", :elem2 => "2", :elem3 => "3"}

p compose en1.dup, en2.dup, en3.dup
p a1=compose(en2.dup, en1.dup) {|a,b| {a.to_sym => b}}

p a1.inject({}) {|ac,item| ac.merge item}
p a1.flatten

p a2=compose(en2.dup, en1.dup).flatten
p Hash[*a2]

p a3=compose(en2.dup, en3.dup).flatten

Their outputs are:

#[[1, "a", [:elem1, "1"]], [2, "b", [:elem2, "2"]], [3, "c", [:elem3, "3"]], [4, "d", nil], [nil, "e", nil]]
#[{:a=>1}, {:b=>2}, {:c=>3}, {:d=>4}, {:e=>nil}]
#{:b=>2, :d=>4, :e=>nil, :c=>3, :a=>1}
#[{:a=>1}, {:b=>2}, {:c=>3}, {:d=>4}, {:e=>nil}]
#["a", 1, "b", 2, "c", 3, "d", 4, "e", nil]
#{"a"=>1, "b"=>2, "c"=>3, "d"=>4, "e"=>nil}
#["a", :elem1, "1", "b", :elem2, "2", "c", :elem3, "3", "d", nil, "e", nil]
March 17, 2010 - (>= v1_8_7_72)
0 thanks

Create new Hash as subset of another

old_hash = {:a=>‘A’,:b=>‘B’,:c=>‘C’,:d=>‘D’,:e=>‘E’,:f=>‘F’}

only_keys = [:a,:c,:f]

new_hash = Hash[*old_hash.find_all{|k,v| only_keys.member?(k)}.flatten]

# => {:a=>“A”, :c=>“C”, :f=>“F”}

or for values

only_vals = [‘A’,‘D’,‘G’]

new_hash = Hash[*old_hash.find_all{|k,v| only_vals.member?(v)}.flatten]

# => {:a=>“A”, :d=>“D”}