From: Ashley Moran <work@...>
Date: 2006-12-10T08:57:01+09:00
Subject: Re: Help me with some nested Hashes.


On Dec 09, 2006, at 11:32 pm, Daniel Finnie wrote:

> What I want to do is have 2 nested hashes, the outer hash returning  
> a new hash on an unknown key and the inner hash returning a space  
> on an unknown key.


Daniel

I was beat to it, but since I spent ten minutes figuring it out, here  
is my solution anyway :)

require 'rubygems'
require 'spec'

# a subclass, instead of a re-opened base class... how un-rubyish ;)
class SpaceHash < Hash
   def [](key)
     value = super(key)
     value = self[key] = Hash.new(" ") unless value
     value
   end
end

context "SpaceHash" do
   setup do
     @space_hash = SpaceHash.new
     @space_hash[5][6] = "H"
   end

   specify "unassigned keys return a space" do
     @space_hash[5][5].should == " "
   end

   specify "assigned keys should return their value" do
     @space_hash[5][6].should == "H"
   end

   specify "assigned another key to the second layer should not  
reassign othe keys" do
     @space_hash[5][7] = "I"
     @space_hash[5][6].should == "H"
   end
end

Ashley