From: "Jan E." <lists@...>
Date: 2012-10-20T16:01:31+09:00
Subject: Re: Hash with Integer key issue

Wayne Simmerson wrote in post #1080492:
> # And here is the problem! Now that I am looking at it here, it's
> obvious that the sort is flattening the Hash...  Is there a way to
> restore it to a Hash, or a better way to achieve the sort?


Hi,

the standard "sort" method always returns an array of the objects coming 
from the "each" method. It does *not* return the original data 
structure. In other words: Whatever you sort, you always get back a 
sorted array.

This usually works fine, because most of the time you just want to have 
the elements in a specific order. If you actually need to retain the 
original data structure, you have to rebuild the object from the array 
(as Harry and Arlen demonstrated).

In this case, however, I think it's in fact a misunderstanding of 
hashes. The idea of a hash is to map keys to values. It doesn't have an 
inner order(*). So you might want to rethink if this is the right data 
structure for your purpose. Maybe you just want an array?


(*)
In newer versions of Ruby, hashes actually do have an inner order 
(probably to be less surprising to newbies). So they're really a hybrid 
of a hash an an array. However, I still wouldn't use them as an ordered 
sequence of elements but to map keys to values.

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