Some notes from Michael Hartl’s excellent Rails tutorial on the differences between Hashes, Symbols, and others stuff.
https://www.railstutorial.org/book/_single-page#sec-other_data_structures
Hashes
Hashes are arrays that aren’t limit to integer indexes. Their indexes, or keys, can be almost any object. For example can use strings as keys.
user = {} # {} is an empty hash.
user["first_name"] = "Michael" # Key "first_name", value "Michael"
Instead of defining hashes one item at a time using square brackets, it’s easy to use a literal representation with keys and values separated by =>, called a “hashrocket”:
user = { "first_name" => "foo", "last_name" => "bar" } # hash from hash rocket
Symbols
While strings are fine as hash keys, in Rails symbols are much more popular. Symbols look like strings but are prefixed with a colon. For example :name is a symbol. Think of symbols as strings without all the baggage (faster all at once comparison).
user = { :name => "foo", :email => "bar" } # hash from symbol & hash rocket
Since symbols are so popular, Ruby no supports a new syntax for this special case:
user = { name: "foo", email: "bar" } # hash made from symbols
Note it can get confusing:
{ :name => "foo" }
{ name: "bar" }
:name is a valid symbol but name: has no meaning by itself (only has meaning inside a hash).
Filed under: rails Tagged: hash, rails, ruby, symbol Image may be NSFW.
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