Associative Arrays in Ruby

Question

Does Ruby have associative arrays?

For eg:

   a = Array.new    a["Peter"] = 32    a["Quagmire"] = 'asdas' 

What is the easiest method to create such an data structure in Ruby?

Answer 1

Unlike PHP which conflates arrays and hashes, in Ruby (and practically every other language) they're a separate thing.

http://ruby-doc.org/core/classes/Hash.html

In your case it'd be:

a = {'Peter' => 32, 'Quagmire' => 'asdas'} 

There are several freely available introductory books on ruby and online simulators etc.

http://www.ruby-doc.org/

Answer 2

Use hashes, here's some examples on how to get started (all of these do the same thing, just different syntax):

a = Hash.new a["Peter"] = 32 a["Quagmire"] = 'asdas' 

Or you could do:

a = {} a["Peter"] = 32 a["Quagmire"] = 'asdas' 

Or even a one liner:

a = {"Peter" => 32, "Quagmire" => 'gigity'}