From: Paul Mckibbin <pmckibbin@...>
Date: 2008-03-26T00:56:45+09:00
Subject: Re: multi-dimentional array

Joan Gu wrote:
> I need to insert Broad Category value and Topics value into a table,
> doing something like this (where 'Police, Crime, Drugs' are topics
> values and 'Crime & Law Enforcement' is broad category value):

How about using a hash with arrays underneath?

Something like:


category_hash={}
cat1 = 'Crime & Law Enforcement'
cat2 = 'Emergency Management'
obj1 = 'Police, Crime, Drugs'
obj2 = 'Fire, Emergency Services'

category_hash[cat1]= obj1.split(",").map {|s| s.strip}
category_hash[cat2]= obj2.split(",").map {|s| s.strip}

You can then add new items like this:

category_hash[cat1] << 'New Crime related item'

puts category_hash.inspect
#=>{"Emergency Management"=>["Fire", "Emergency Services"], "Crime & Law 
Enforcement"=>["Police", "Crime", "Drugs", "New Crime related item"]}

and you can then iterate through categories and within each category 
through the items.

Mac
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