Question

I can create an array of hashes:

people = [
  {"Name" => "J.R. Kruger", "State" => "WA"},
  {"Name" => "Carl Hennings", "State" => "CA"}
]

Then I can use the each statement:

people.each { |p| puts p["Name"] }

and it will render a list of names as I expected.

"J.R. Kruger"
"Carl Hennings"

But, if I consume a web service of JSON objects that get parsed into an array of hashes:

speakers = JSON.parse(open("http://some.url.com/speakers.json").read)

It returns me an array of hashes. But, if I try and do the same thing as the above array of hashes representing people:

speakers.each {|s| puts s["SpeakerName"]}

It will only output the entire contents of speakers, which is an array of hashes and not the expected list of the "SpeakerName" key’s value for each hash in the array.

I should add that I can do:

speakers[0]["SpeakerName"] 

and get the desired results which ensures me that it’s not a wrong key.

What am missing?

---

UPDATED:

output from file:

[
  {
    "Title"=>"Working with Maps in iOS 6: MapKit and CoreLocation in Depth",
    "Abstract"=>"Adding a Map to an App and recording a User\u2019s location as they use the App has become a common must have feature in may of todays popular applications. This presentation will go over the updated iOS 6 APIs for accomplishing such tasks including map annotations, dragging and dropping custom pins as well as delve into some of the finer aspects of the required location based calculations one needs to consider to find the center of the map or the distance between two points. Additionally the presentation will go over techniques to update a MapView with a moving object as well as positioning the image for the object properly along its heading. This will be a straight forward hands on development presentation with plenty of code examples.",
    "Start"=>"2013-01-11T20:35:00Z",
    "Room"=>"Salon A",
    "Difficulty"=>"Intermediate",
    "SpeakerName"=>"Geoffrey Goetz",
    "Technology"=>"Mac/iPhone",
    "URI"=>"/api/sessions.json/Working-with-Maps-in-iOS-6-MapKit-and-CoreLocation-in-Depth",
    "EventType"=>"Session",
    "Id"=>"4f248d87-0e18-488d-8cef-5e4130b8bb20",
    "SessionLookupId"=>"Working-with-Maps-in-iOS-6-MapKit-and-CoreLocation-in-Depth",
    "SpeakerURI"=>"/api/speakers.json/Geoffrey-Goetz"
  },
  {
    "Title"=>"Vendor Sessions - Friday",
    "Start"=>"2013-01-11T20:00:00Z",
    "End"=>"2013-01-11T20:20:00Z",
    "Room"=>"TBD",
    "Difficulty"=>"Beginner",
    "SpeakerName"=>"All Attendees",
    "Technology"=>"Other",
    "URI"=>"/api/sessions.json/Vendor-Sessions--Friday",
    "EventType"=>"Session",
    "Id"=>"43720cb8-d8ca-4694-8806-debcbdefa239",
    "SessionLookupId"=>"Vendor-Sessions--Friday",
    "SpeakerURI"=>"/api/speakers.json/All-Attendees"
  },
  {
    "Title"=>"Vendor Sessions - Thursday",
    "Start"=>"2013-01-10T20:00:00Z",
    "End"=>"2013-01-10T20:20:00Z",
    "Room"=>"TBD",
    "Difficulty"=>"Beginner",
    "SpeakerName"=>"All Attendees",
    "Technology"=>"Other",
    "URI"=>"/api/sessions.json/Vendor-Sessions--Thursday",
    "EventType"=>"Session",
    "Id"=>"2df202e4-219c-4efb-a838-3898d183dd19",
    "SessionLookupId"=>"Vendor-Sessions--Thursday",
    "SpeakerURI"=>"/api/speakers.json/All-Attendees"
  },
  {
    "Title"=>"Version your database on nearly any platform with Liquibase",
    "Abstract"=>"If you are still writing one-off scripts to manage your database, then it is time to make your life much simpler and less error-prone.  \nWe'll spend the time discussing Liquibase, a tool that will help you to manage that process.  It will even allow you to check your schema and seed data into source-control, and get new environments up and running quickly.  This session will focus not on the merits of using such a tool, but on its workflow and implementation in a project.  We'll run through the majority of features from the command-line, demonstrating that as long as a Java Runtime Environment (jre) is available, Liquibase can be used during deployments on any platform.  We'll also touch on usage with maven and quirks of Liquibase that are good to know ahead of time.",
    "Start"=>"2013-01-11T20:35:00Z",
    "Room"=>"Sagewood/Zebrawood",
    "Difficulty"=>"Beginner",
    "SpeakerName"=>"Daniel Bower",
    "Technology"=>"Continuous Deployment",
    "URI"=>"/api/sessions.json/Version-your-database-on-nearly-any-platform-with-Liquibase",
    "EventType"=>"Session",
    "Id"=>"4abb3869-bacd-42e1-93dc-14e712090b65",
    "SessionLookupId"=>"Version-your-database-on-nearly-any-platform-with-Liquibase",
    "SpeakerURI"=>"/api/speakers.json/Daniel-Bower"
  }
]

Answer 1

The answer actually turned out to be exactly what I had suggested in my OP -> that the results is that Array#each returns the array.

Therefore, it does post the same results in say (a view) when calling each on a instance variable it returns the entire array after the executing the block.

See the Ruby Api docs for the source and how it returns the array which is the final returned result.