From: Peter Hicks <peter.hicks@...>
Date: 2011-05-04T07:58:04+09:00
Subject: Iterating over an Array of Hashes

All,

When iterating over an Array of Hashes repeatedly, the 'each' method
appear to pass a reference to - not a copy of - each element in the
array.

Is there a way to take a *copy* of the data, rather than a reference to
the data, so that any changes to each hash aren't?

Explaining it another way - I have code similar to the following:

  a = [ '2011-01-01', '2011-01-02', '2011-01-03' ]
  b = [ { :x => "foo" }, { :x => "bar" }, { :x => "baz" } ]

  a.each do |a_item|

    puts a_item

    b.each do |b_item|
      b_item[:date] = a_item
      # DO SOMETHING WITH B
    end

  end

What I want to do within the b.each loop is work on a *copy* of each
element of b, such that if I mess around with it, the changes are lost
when when the loop exits.

What is the magic I am missing?


Peter