How do I compare two hashes?

Question

You can compare hashes directly for equality:

hash1 = {'a' => 1, 'b' => 2}
hash2 = {'a' => 1, 'b' => 2}
hash3 = {'a' => 1, 'b' => 2, 'c' => 3}

hash1 == hash2 # => true
hash1 == hash3 # => false

hash1.to_a == hash2.to_a # => true
hash1.to_a == hash3.to_a # => false

---

---

You can convert the hashes to arrays, then get their difference:

hash3.to_a - hash1.to_a # => [["c", 3]]

if (hash3.size > hash1.size)
  difference = hash3.to_a - hash1.to_a
else
  difference = hash1.to_a - hash3.to_a
end
Hash[*difference.flatten] # => {"c"=>3}

---

Simplifying further:

Assigning difference via a ternary structure:

  difference = (hash3.size > hash1.size) \
                ? hash3.to_a - hash1.to_a \
                : hash1.to_a - hash3.to_a
=> [["c", 3]]
  Hash[*difference.flatten] 
=> {"c"=>3}

Doing it all in one operation and getting rid of the difference variable:

  Hash[*(
  (hash3.size > hash1.size)    \
      ? hash3.to_a - hash1.to_a \
      : hash1.to_a - hash3.to_a
  ).flatten] 
=> {"c"=>3}

You can try the hashdiff gem, which allows deep comparison of hashes and arrays in the hash.

The following is an example:

a = {a:{x:2, y:3, z:4}, b:{x:3, z:45}}
b = {a:{y:3}, b:{y:3, z:30}}

diff = HashDiff.diff(a, b)
diff.should == [['-', 'a.x', 2], ['-', 'a.z', 4], ['-', 'b.x', 3], ['~', 'b.z', 45, 30], ['+', 'b.y', 3]]

If you want to get what is the difference between two hashes, you can do this:

h1 = {:a => 20, :b => 10, :c => 44}
h2 = {:a => 2, :b => 10, :c => "44"}
result = {}
h1.each {|k, v| result[k] = h2[k] if h2[k] != v }
p result #=> {:a => 2, :c => "44"}

Rails is deprecating the diff method.

For a quick one-liner:

hash1.to_s == hash2.to_s

You could use a simple array intersection, this way you can know what differs in each hash.

    hash1 = { a: 1 , b: 2 }
    hash2 = { a: 2 , b: 2 }

    overlapping_elements = hash1.to_a & hash2.to_a

    exclusive_elements_from_hash1 = hash1.to_a - overlapping_elements
    exclusive_elements_from_hash2 = hash2.to_a - overlapping_elements

I developed this to compare if two hashes are equal

def hash_equal?(hash1, hash2)
  array1 = hash1.to_a
  array2 = hash2.to_a
  (array1 - array2 | array2 - array1) == []
end

The usage:

> hash_equal?({a: 4}, {a: 4})
=> true
> hash_equal?({a: 4}, {b: 4})
=> false

> hash_equal?({a: {b: 3}}, {a: {b: 3}})
=> true
> hash_equal?({a: {b: 3}}, {a: {b: 4}})
=> false

> hash_equal?({a: {b: {c: {d: {e: {f: {g: {h: 1}}}}}}}}, {a: {b: {c: {d: {e: {f: {g: {h: 1}}}}}}}})
=> true
> hash_equal?({a: {b: {c: {d: {e: {f: {g: {marino: 1}}}}}}}}, {a: {b: {c: {d: {e: {f: {g: {h: 2}}}}}}}})
=> false

If you need a quick and dirty diff between hashes which correctly supports nil in values you can use something like

def diff(one, other)
  (one.keys + other.keys).uniq.inject({}) do |memo, key|
    unless one.key?(key) && other.key?(key) && one[key] == other[key]
      memo[key] = [one.key?(key) ? one[key] : :_no_key, other.key?(key) ? other[key] : :_no_key]
    end
    memo
  end
end