[ruby-core:38529] [Ruby 1.9 - Feature #5008] Equal rights for Hash (like Array, String, Integer, Float)

Issue #5008 has been updated by Steve Klabnik.


NilClass#to_h would be useful. Especially for Enumerable types, it's common convention to return an empty container of that type, so that you can chain things together.

The proliferation of nil is often considered a code smell, there's tons of cases where converting nils into values that still mean 'nothing' but have some amount of meaning is useful. See Avdi's talk at RailsConf about Confident Code, for example: http://avdi.org/talks/confident-code-railsconf-2011/
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Feature #5008: Equal rights for Hash (like Array, String, Integer, Float)
http://redmine.ruby-lang.org/issues/5008

Author: Suraj Kurapati
Status: Assigned
Priority: Normal
Assignee: Yukihiro Matsumoto
Category: 
Target version: 


=begin
Hello,

I am using ruby 1.9.2p180 (2011-02-18 revision 30909) [x86_64-linux].

Although Ruby has a rich set of primitive data types and structures, 
the Hash seems neglected in the Ruby API in comparison to its peers:

* String: Object#to_s by API
* Integer: Kernel#Integer by API and Object#to_i by convention
* Float: Kernel#Float by API and Object#to_f by convention
* Array: Kernel#Array by API and Object#to_a by convention
* Hash: Kernel#Hash (issue #3131) and Object#to_hash by convention

In particular, the Hash seems neglected by the Ruby API because:

* Its convention method (#to_hash) is longer than one character (#to_h).
* It did not have a Kernel-level method until recently (see issue #3131).
* It has no methods for conversion from NilClass, unlike #to_s, a, i, f.

Please rectify this un-orthogonality and grant Hash equal rights by:

* Establish #to_h as the convention method for converting objects into Hash.
* Add Kernel#Hash method for converting objects into Hash strictly (see issue #3131).
* Define NilClass#to_h so that we can convert nil into an empty Hash.

Thanks for your consideration.
=end


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