From: Paul <tester.paul@...>
Date: 2007-04-14T03:30:05+09:00
Subject: Combining Hash elements to produce single line output

Hi there.  I know I've done something similar to this before but I
seem to be stumped at the moment and thought I would ask for help.

I have a temporary Hash array that holds information in different
elements that need to be combined to produce single line outputs.
Here's some detail:

tmp_hash =
[["foo:1", "123"],
 ["foo:2", "abc"],
 ["bar:1", "456"],
 ["bar:2", "xyz"]]

Desired Output:
---
"foo" "123" "abc"
"bar" "456" "xyz"
---

Sample code:
---
content_alpha = ''
content_num = ''
tmp_hash.sort.each do |key, value|
   (name, num) = key.split(':')
   #
   content_alpha = value if ( num == '1' )
   content_num   = value if ( num == '2' )
   #
   print name + "\t" + content_num + "\t" + content_alpha
end
---

I know the above doesn't produce the desired output but I haven't been
able to crack it yet.  (I've tried several different solutions but am
still new to Ruby and scripting in general.)  I was hoping someone
might be able to provide me with some new suggestions to try.