Question

Say I have a hash like:

foo = {
  :bar => ['r', 'baz'], # has a total str length of 4 characters inside of the array
  :baz => ['words', 'etc', 'long words'] # has a total str length of 18 characters inside of the array,
  :blah => ['at'] # has a total str length of 2 characters inside of the array
  # etc...
}

How would I go about sorting this hash by the total string length of the items contained within the arrays? The resulting hash order in this case should be: :blah, :bar, :baz

Answer 1

I’d just do this:

Hash[foo.sort_by { |k, v| v.join.length }]

I assume you’re not intending the change the original Hash values, just re-order them.