Question

I am new to ruby and started using it for the last few days, so my apologies if I am asking something very basic.

I am looking for a way to convert the following array into a hash.

arr => 

{"id"=>"xxx", "name"=>"show all", "parent_id"=>"yyy", "tsuite_name"=>"show system", "tc_external_id"=>"zzz"}

where arr.length is 1.

I tried to workaround it but could not convert it as a hash.

I needed this because Testlink xmlrpc responds with the format shown above.

Any help on this would be of great help.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Welcome to Ruby!

The below construct is a Hash.

{"id"=>"xxx", "name"=>"show all", "parent_id"=>"yyy", "tsuite_name"=>"show system", "tc_external_id"=>"zzz"}

If it was an Array, it would be surrounded by braces:

[{"id"=>"xxx", "name"=>"show all", "parent_id"=>"yyy", "tsuite_name"=>"show system", "tc_external_id"=>"zzz"}]

But what I think you were given was this:

{ "arr" => {"id"=>"xxx", "name"=>"show all", "parent_id"=>"yyy", "tsuite_name"=>"show system", "tc_external_id"=>"zzz"} }

The above object is a Hash within a Hash. The length method reported 1 because the hash only contained a single key, namely, arr.

You can test the class of a variable with the class method:

$ irb
>> var = { "arr" => {"id"=>"xxx", "name"=>"show all" } }
=> { "arr" => {"id"=>"xxx", "name"=>"show all" } }
>> var.class
=> Hash

If all you need is the value of the inside hash, then grab it like so:

>> keep = var["arr"]
=> {"id"=>"xxx", "name"=>"show all" }

If I totally misunderstood your question, then please clarify.