Ever had a hash which contained strings as keys and needed symbols instead? I do: From a REXML::Document I created a hash. Unfortunately, the keys were all strings and I needed them to be symbols at some other point in the app. Thank god, Ruby is capable of extending any object “on the fly”. So, I wrote a simple extension to Hash, which you might find useful as well:<\/p>\n
class Hash\r\n #take keys of hash and transform those to a symbols\r\n def self.transform_keys_to_symbols(value)\r\n return value if not value.is_a?(Hash)\r\n hash = value.inject({}){|memo,(k,v)| memo[k.to_sym] = Hash.transform_keys_to_symbols(v); memo}\r\n return hash\r\n end\r\nend\r\n<\/pre>\nUsage is:<\/p>\n
a = { \"key\" => 123, \"inner_hash\" => { \"another_key\" => \"blabla\" }}\r\nHash.transform_keys_to_symbols(a)\r\n#returns\r\na = { :key => 123, :inner_hash => { :another_key => \"blabla\" }}\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever had a hash which contained strings as keys and needed symbols instead? I do: From a REXML::Document I created a hash. Unfortunately, the keys were all strings and I needed them to be symbols at some other point in the app. Thank god, Ruby is capable of extending any object “on the fly”. So, … <\/p>\n