class HashWithIndifferentAccess

Ruby on Rails 4.2.9

Since v3.0.20

Available in: v3.0.20 v3.1.12 v3.2.22.5 v4.0.13 v4.1.16 v4.2.9 v5.2.8.1 v6.0.6 v6.1.7.10 v7.0.10 v7.1.6 v7.2.3 v8.0.4 v8.1.2

Compare with:

Implements a hash where keys :foo and "foo" are considered to be the same.

rgb = ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess.new

rgb[:black] = '#000000'
rgb[:black]  # => '#000000'
rgb['black'] # => '#000000'

rgb['white'] = '#FFFFFF'
rgb[:white]  # => '#FFFFFF'
rgb['white'] # => '#FFFFFF'

Internally symbols are mapped to strings when used as keys in the entire writing interface (calling []=, merge, etc). This mapping belongs to the public interface. For example, given:

hash = ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess.new(a: 1)

You are guaranteed that the key is returned as a string:

hash.keys # => ["a"]

Technically other types of keys are accepted:

hash = ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess.new(a: 1)
hash[0] = 0
hash # => {"a"=>1, 0=>0}

but this class is intended for use cases where strings or symbols are the expected keys and it is convenient to understand both as the same. For example the params hash in Ruby on Rails.

Note that core extensions define Hash#with_indifferent_access:

rgb = { black: '#000000', white: '#FFFFFF' }.with_indifferent_access

which may be handy.

Inherits from

Hash

Methods (defined here)

Used by

Subclasses (1)

ActionController::Parameters

Methods (inherited)

From Hash (38)

From Object (23)