From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2007-04-14T06:50:06+09:00
Subject: Re: Combining Hash elements to produce single line output

On 13.04.2007 20:26, Paul wrote:
> 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"]]

This is not a Hash.

I suggest you choose a more appropriate data structure, use each key 
only once and stuff all values in an Array, i.e.

tmp = {
   "foo" => %w{123 abc},
   "bar" => %w{456 xyz}
}

or

tmp = [
   ["foo", %w{123 abc}],
   ["bar", %w{456 xyz}]
]

and then

tmp.each do |h,k|
   print h.inspect,
     " ",
     k.map {|kk| kk.inspect}.join(" "),
     "\n"
end

or even

tmp.each {|a| print '"', a.flatten.join('" "'), "\"\n"}

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

Kind regards

	robert