Ruby - How to parse string to array of hashes

Question

I have a string stored in a database like so:

images = '[{"id":1,"type":"Image","image_id":"asdf123"},{"id":2,"type":"Image","image_id":"asdf456"},{"id":3,"type":"Image","image_id":"asdf890"}]'

And would like to convert it to an array so I can do something like:

images.each do |image|
    puts image.image_id
end

Is it really just a matter of removing the outer square brackets and then following the procedure from this question Converting a Ruby String into an array or is there a more direct/elegant method?

Answer 1

That format is called JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and can be parsed by a builtin Ruby library:

require 'json'

images_str = '[{"id":1,"type":"Image","image_id":"asdf123"},{"id":2,"type":"Image","image_id":"asdf456"},{"id":3,"type":"Image","image_id":"asdf890"}]'

images = JSON.parse(images_str)
images.size           # => 3
images[0].class       # => Hash
images[0]['image_id'] # => "asdf123"

images.each { |x| puts "#{x['id']}: #{x['image_id']}" }
# 1: asdf123
# 2: asdf456
# 3: asdf890