Ruby - Adding value to hash adds duplicate data - ruby-on-rails

Question

When I access my nested hash something weird happens.
Below is my nested hash.
{
"http://example.com"=>{
"a-big_word"=>{
"Another word"=>[]
}
},
"www.example.com"=>{
"a-big_word"=>{
"Another word"=>[]
}
}
}
If I try and add something to it with the following
hash['www.example.com']['a-big_word']['Another word'] << {"key"=>"value"}
This happens
{
"http://example.com"=>{
"a-big_word"=>{
"Another word"=>[{"key"=>"value"}]
}
},
"www.example.com"=>{
"a-big_word"=>{
"Another word"=>[{"key"=>"value"}]
}
}
}

Answer 1

Use strings instead of symbols as keys. I took your hash and changed the keys to be strings. Now it looks like this:
{"http://example.com"=>
{"sublink"=>
{"A word"=>[], :"Another word"=>[]},
"sublinktwo"=>
{"Hello"=>[], "World"=>[]}},
"www.example.com"=>
{"sublink"=>
{"hi"=>[], "goodbye"=>[]},
"sublinkthree"=>
{"word"=>[], "bye"=>[]}
}
}
If you haven't see the difference, for keys I'm using => instead of :. In that way Ruby will not convert the keys into symbols, it will leave it as they are.
How to access the values? Check out the following irb session.
> hash["www.example.com"]
=> {"sublink"=>{"hi"=>[], "goodbye"=>[]}, "sublinkthree"=>{"word"=>[], "bye"=>[]}}
> hash["www.example.com"]["sublink"]
=> {"hi"=>[], "goodbye"=>[]}
> hash["www.example.com"]["sublink"]["hi"]
=> []
Change value:
> hash["www.example.com"]["sublink"]["hi"] << {"key"=>"value"}
=> [{"key"=>"value"}]