Question

I am working with Ruby. I need to grab each key/value and put it into a string.

So far I have:

values = ['first' => '1', 'second' => '2']
  @thelink = values.collect do | key, value |
  "#{key}=#{value}&"
  end

When I print @thelink I see:

first1second2=&

But Really what I want is

first=1&second=2

Could anybody help/explain please?

Answer 1

There is something subtle you are missing here {} vs [].

See the below taken from IRB tests:

irb(main):002:0> {'first' => 1, 'second' => 2}
=> {"second"=>2, "first"=>1}

irb(main):003:0>  ['first' => 1, 'second' => 2]
=> [{"second"=>2, "first"=>1}]

irb(main):004:0> {'first' => 1, 'second' => 2}.class
=> Hash

irb(main):005:0>  ['first' => 1, 'second' => 2].class
=> Array

Similar to this:

irb(main):006:0> {'first' => 1, 'second' => 2}.collect { |key,value| puts "#{key}:#{value}" }
second:2
first:1
=> [nil, nil]

irb(main):007:0> ['first' => 1, 'second' => 2].collect { |key,value| puts "#{key}:#{value}" }
second2first1:
=> [nil]

The array has a single element (a hash) that, as a string, is everything concatenated. This is the important thing to note here.
On the other hand, the hash iterates by handing you the key/value pairs that you are expecting.

Hope that helps.