From: Duong Quang Ha <quangduongha@...>
Date: 2012-06-24T11:23:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Stripping symbol character from hash turned to array

Hello,

On Sun, Jun 24, 2012 at 8:38 AM, Emeka Patrick <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:
> Hi, new to programming and Ruby and trying to work through some problems
> and understand the language. Right now I'm doing work with hashes and
> ran into a question.
>
> Took this Hash
>
> people = {
>  :fred => 23,
>  :joan => 18,
>  :pete => 54
> }
>
> and turned it to an Array via  "people_array = people.to_a"
>
> now I have
>
> people_array =  [[:fred, 23], [:joan, 18], [:pete, 54]]
>

In this array, *:fred* is a symbol and *:* only is notation for a
symbol when you puts it.

> If I want to keep it as a nested Array how can I go about stripping the
> ":" from what used to be the key. Please help and if possible, explain.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Emeka
>
> PS
> I've tried gsub, but I get undefined method for Symbol
>
> 1.9.3p194 :140 > people_array.each do |k, v|
> 1.9.3p194 :141 >     k.gsub!(':', '')
> 1.9.3p194 :142?>   end
> NoMethodError: undefined method `gsub!' for :fred:Symbol
>  from (irb):141:in `block in irb_binding'
>  from (irb):140:in `each'

You can do as follow:

> people_array.each do | k, v |
>     puts k.to_s
> end

It this code snippet, I convert each symbol to string, so the
*:* disappear (just for demo)

You can try the following code fragment to more clearly:

1.9.2p320 :016 > person = :fred
 => :fred
1.9.2p320 :017 > person.class
 => Symbol
1.9.2p320 :018 > person.to_s
 => "fred"
1.9.2p320 :019 > person.to_s.class
 => String
1.9.2p320 :020 > person.to_s.intern
 => :fred
1.9.2p320 :021 > person.to_s.intern.class
 => Symbol


Best regards,

-- 
Duong Quang Ha (Hà Quang Dương in Vietnamese)
blog.haqduong.com