From: Florian Frank <flori@...>
Date: 2009-02-03T18:27:20+09:00
Subject: [ruby-core:21798] Re: [Feature #1084](Closed) request for: 	Array#sort_by!

Rados��aw Bu��at wrote:
> On the one hand it would be nice to have these methods, on the other
> hand it would mean that Hash isn't anymore just simple, plain Hash
> (because the can be sorted and who knows what else will in the
> future). My pragmatic approach tells me that it's not as bad idea to
> have it.

My thinking was this: We are already paying the price in memory (2 pointers) for
every hash entry and I feel we don't get enough in return for this payment. If a
fast way to sort the insertion ordered hashes would be available this could be
something like a poor man's sorted set or map.

> Without it if someone want to change order of keys he can do
> this by:
> h = {"b" => "bar", "a" => "foo"}
> h = Hash[*h.sort.flatten]
> p h

Yeah, this is possible of course, but one has to create a lot of temporary
arrays for the transformation. This isn't something I would like to do that
often for big hashes.

-- 
Florian Frank