From: Kevin Smith <sent@...>
Date: 2000-12-22T13:17:28+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:7940] Re: beginner's question -- hashes

John Rubinubi <rubinubi@cyberspace.org> wrote:

>when I loop through the following...
>
>st=gets.chop!
>if not hash[st] #I suppose I should use has_key?
>  hash[st]='some_value'
>else
>  puts hash[st]
>end
>
>when I go through the loop again and enter the same key it doesn't find it
>although the same code finds the key-value pairs that I put in the hash
>with a literal when I created it. 

I can't directly answer the question, but one of 
the first things I do when something happens that 
I don't understand is to start inspecting. Either 
before, or at the top of the loop, I would 
insert:
  p hash.inspect

I would probably also p st just to make sure it 
contains what I think it does.

Kevin