Check if two hashes have the same set of keys

Question

What is the most efficient way to check if two hashes h1 and h2 have the same set of keys disregarding the order? Could it be made faster or more concise with close efficiency than the answer that I post?

Answer 1

Combining freemasonjson's and sawa's ideas:

h1.size == h2.size and (h1.keys - h2.keys).empty?

Answer 2

Try:

# Check that both hash have the same number of entries first before anything
if h1.size == h2.size
    # breaks from iteration and returns 'false' as soon as there is a mismatched key
    # otherwise returns true
    h1.keys.all?{ |key| !!h2[key] }
end

Enumerable#all?

worse case scenario, you'd only be iterating through the keys once.

Answer 3

Just for the sake of having at least a benchmark on this question...

require 'securerandom'
require 'benchmark'

a = {}
b = {}

# Use uuid to get a unique random key
(0..1_000).each do |i|
  key = SecureRandom.uuid
  a[key] = i
  b[key] = i
end

Benchmark.bmbm do |x|
  x.report("#-") do
    1_000.times do
      (a.keys - b.keys).empty? and (a.keys - b.keys).empty?
    end
  end

  x.report("#&") do
    1_000.times do
      computed = a.keys & b.keys
      computed.size == a.size
    end
  end

  x.report("#all?") do
    1_000.times do
      a.keys.all?{ |key| !!b[key] }
    end
  end

  x.report("#sort") do
    1_000.times do
      a_sorted = a.keys.sort
      b_sorted = b.keys.sort
      a == b
    end
  end
end

Results are:

Rehearsal -----------------------------------------
#-      1.000000   0.000000   1.000000 (  1.001348)
#&      0.560000   0.000000   0.560000 (  0.563523)
#all?   0.240000   0.000000   0.240000 (  0.239058)
#sort   0.850000   0.010000   0.860000 (  0.854839)
-------------------------------- total: 2.660000sec

            user     system      total        real
#-      0.980000   0.000000   0.980000 (  0.976698)
#&      0.560000   0.000000   0.560000 (  0.559592)
#all?   0.250000   0.000000   0.250000 (  0.251128)
#sort   0.860000   0.000000   0.860000 (  0.862857)

I have to agree with @akuhn that this would be a better benchmark if we had more information on the dataset you are using. But that being said, I believe this question really needed some hard fact.