Hashes

A collection of key-value pairs enclosed within curly braces. Values are assigned to keys using the => syntax.

Creating Hash with new Class Method

This will create an empty hash with no default values. Default values may also be provided.

# Create a new empty hash
empty_hash = Hash.new

puts empty_hash.inspect
# Output: {}

puts "#{empty_hash[1]}"
# An empty hash will have nothing to display

# Create a new hash with a default value
hash_default = Hash.new("Codecademy")

puts hash_default.inspect
# Output: {}

# An empty hash will return the default value
puts "#{hash_default[4]}"
# Output: Codecademy

Creating Hash Literals

A hash literal is created by enclosing a list of key-value pairs between curly braces.

programming_languages = {"key1" => "Ruby", "key2" => "Python", "key3" => "Java", "key4" => "C++", "key5" => "C#"}

puts programming_languages.inspect
# Output: {"key1"=>"Ruby", "key2"=>"Python", "key3"=>"Java", "key4"=>"C++", "key5"=>"C#"}

Retrieving a hash value involves putting the required key between square brackets ([]).

programming_languages = {"key1" => "Ruby", "key2" => "Python", "key3" => "Java", "key4" => "C++", "key5" => "C#"}

puts programming_languages["key1"]
# Output: Ruby

Changing a hash value involves putting the required key between square brackets ([]) and assigning a new value.

programming_languages = {"key1" => "Ruby", "key2" => "Python", "key3" => "Java", "key4" => "C++", "key5" => "C#"}

# print original value of "key1"
puts programming_languages["key1"]
# Output: Ruby

# change value of "key1"
programming_languages["key1"] = "Ruby on Rails"

puts programming_languages["key1"]
# Output: Ruby on Rails