Concise Ruby hash equivalent of Python dict.get()

Question

In know that I can manipulate a Ruby default Hash value like this:

h={a:1, b:2, c:3}
h[:x] # => nil
h.default = 5
h[:x] # => 5
h.default = 8
h[:y] # => 8

but this gets quite tedious when doing it repeatedly for multiple values with different defaults.

It also could get dangerous if the hash is passed to other methods which want their own defaults for certain (potentially missing) keys.

In Python, I used to

d={'a':1, 'b':2, 'c':3}
d.get('x', 5) # => 5
d.get('y', 8) # => 8

which doesn't have any side-effects. Is there an equivalent of this get method in Ruby?

Answer 1

Yes, it is called fetch, and it can also take a block:

h.fetch(:x, 5)
h.fetch(:x) {|missing_key| "Unfortunately #{missing_key} is not available"}