From: Matthew Smillie <M.B.Smillie@...>
Date: 2006-06-20T06:59:19+09:00
Subject: Re: associative array naming indirection

> Related: The reason for futzing with .upto() was to deal with a  
> variable
> length of input array needing to access labels in a given order. Is
> there a better way?

That depends.  If having 'nil' values in your hash is OK, you could  
still use #zip

labels = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']
data = [1, 2, 3]
Hash[*labels.zip(data).flatten]
=> {"a"=>1, "b"=>2, "c"=>3, "d"=>nil, "e"=>nil, "f"=>nil}

or #inject, if you're feeling slightly obscurantist.

labels.inject({}) { |hsh, label| hsh.merge({label => data.shift}) }
=> {"a"=>1, "b"=>2, "c"=>3, "d"=>nil, "e"=>nil, "f"=>nil}

Or one of the other iteration methods in Array and Enumerable.

data.each_index { |idx| hsh[labels[idx]] = data[idx] }
data.each_with_index { |datum, idx| hsh[labels[idx] = datum }
hsh
=> {"a"=>1, "b"=>2, "c"=>3}


Browse through the docs, they're the most help in situations like this.

matthew smillie.