Ruby custom method to fill hash - ruby-on-rails

I'm working on a method that will allow me to add in a "word" and its "definition", into a hash.
Here's what I have:
class Dictionary
def entries
#entries ||= {}
end
def add word, definition = nil
entries[word] = definition
"#{entries}"
end
end
Note: I want the definition parameter to be optional, hence my initialization to nil. However, for some reason that is showing up in my output.
Example: Passing in "fish" and "aquatic animal":
My output: {{"fish"=>"aquatic animal"}=>nil}
Desired output: {"fish"=>"aquatic animal"}
It seems like the problem is that it's putting both values that I pass to the method into the first key in the hash, and is putting that "nil" value into that key's value. Where am I making an error?
Edit: Adding the relevant RSpec block that is doing the method call so that I can better understand exactly how RSpec is making this call:
describe Dictionary do
before do
#d = Dictionary.new
end
it 'is empty when created' do
#d.entries.should == {}
end
it 'can add whole entries with keyword and definition' do
#d.add('fish' => 'aquatic animal')
#d.entries.should == {'fish' => 'aquatic animal'}
#d.keywords.should == ['fish']
end
Thanks!

If you want to optionally accept a hash entry...
def add word, definition = nil
if word.class == Hash
entries.merge!(word)
else
entries[word] = definition
end
"#{entries}"
end

You don't want to do
#d.add('fish' => 'aquatic animal')
You want to do...
#d.add('fish', 'aquatic animal')
As it is, you're passing a hash as the first argument, second argument is empty.

Your RSpec is wrong.
Change #d.add('fish' => 'aquatic animal') to #d.add('fish', 'aquatic animal')
Your #add method is accepting 2 parameters, with one being optional. With your current code, you're passing in a single hash 'fish' => 'aquatic animal'. Therefor setting word to the hash, and def to nil.

Related

How can i replace a parameter by looping parameters in ruby?

I have an array of parameters and i want to replace all parameters by looping over array in ruby on rails.
I am using before_action in controller as
before_action :cost_format
This is an array of parameters. The format of the parameter is string, i want to run a function on each parameter and convert it into float. So i am looping an array and calling function on each element.
def cost_format
x = [params[:cost_1], params[:cost_2], params[:cost_3]]
x.each do |i|
convert_cost(i)
end
end
I have a function convert_cost as following
def convert_cost(x)
x.gsub(',', '.').to_f
end
How do i loop an array so that my parameters get replaced.? Parameters are not being replaced by above code. Any hint would be appreciated.
Thanks
I think you'll want something like this:
def cost_format
%i(cost_1 cost_2 cost_3).each do |key|
params[key] = convert_cost(params[key])
end
end
def convert_cost(val)
val.gsub(',', '.').to_f
end
This grabs each key from your params and replaces the value with it passed through the convert_cost method.
Edit: you might be able to ignore this section about convert_cost due if it works with the format you're getting your numbers in. Please excuse my ethnocentrism :)
I've not updated your convert_cost method, though I'm a little wary about whether it will work at the moment. If you've got, for example "1,234,567" and you call your gsub you get "1.234.567". Calling to_f on that gives you 1.234, which I wouldn't think you'd want?
Instead of that, you could use:
def convert_cost(val)
val.gsub(',', '').to_f
end
E.G.
convert_cost("1,234,567")
# => 1234567.0
Combining all that, the following would be converted like so:
params = { cost_1: "1,234,567", cost_2: "123", cost_3: "456.5", cost_4: "I won't be touched" }
# after `cost_format` before_action runs:
# => {:cost_1=>1234567.0, :cost_2=>123.0, :cost_3=>456.5, :cost_4=>"I won't be touched"}
Let me know how you get on or if you have any question - hope this helps.
Could you try something like
x.map{|param| param.gsub(',', '.').to_f}
directly on your array.
So your cost_format method will look like:
def cost_format
x = [params[:cost_1], params[:cost_2], params[:cost_3]]
result = x.map{|param| param.gsub(',', '.').to_f}
# do stuff with result
end
I think the reason it's not working because, each method returns its receiver, but map returns a new array.

Editing params nested hash

Assume we have a rails params hash full of nested hashes and arrays. Is there a way to alter every string value (whether in nested hashes or arrays) which matches a certain criteria (e.g. regex) and still keep the output as a params hash (still containing nested hashes arrays?
I want to do some sort of string manipulation on some attributes before even assigning them to a model. Is there any better way to achieve this?
[UPDATE]
Let's say we want to select the strings that have an h in the beginning and replace it with a 'b'. so we have:
before:
{ a: "h343", b: { c: ["h2", "s21"] } }
after:
{ a: "b343", b: { c: ["b2", "s21"] } }
For some reasons I can't do this with model callbacks and stuff, so it should have be done before assigning to the respective attributes.
still keep the output as a params hash (still containing nested hashes arrays
Sure.
You'll have to manipulate the params hash, which is done in the controller.
Whilst I don't have lots of experience with this I just spent a bunch of time testing -- you can use a blend of the ActionController::Parameters class and then using gsub! -- like this:
#app/controllers/your_controller.rb
class YourController < ApplicationController
before_action :set_params, only: :create
def create
# Params are passed from the browser request
#model = Model.new params_hash
end
private
def params_hash
params.require(:x).permit(:y).each do |k,v|
v.gsub!(/[regex]/, 'string')
end
end
end
I tested this on one of our test apps, and it worked perfectly:
--
There are several important points.
Firstly, when you call a strong_params hash, params.permit creates a new hash out of the passed params. This means you can't just modify the passed params with params[:description] = etc. You have to do it to the permitted params.
Secondly, I could only get the .each block working with a bang-operator (gsub!), as this changes the value directly. I'd have to spend more time to work out how to do more elaborate changes.
--
Update
If you wanted to include nested hashes, you'd have to call another loop:
def params_hash
params.require(:x).permit(:y).each do |k,v|
if /_attributes/ ~= k
k.each do |deep_k, deep_v|
deep_v.gsub!(/[regex]/, 'string'
end
else
v.gsub!(/[regex]/, 'string')
end
end
end
In general you should not alter the original params hash. When you use strong parameters to whitelist the params you are actually creating a copy of the params - which can be modified if you really need to.
def whitelist_params
params.require(:foo).permit(:bar, :baz)
end
But if mapping the input to a model is too complex or you don't want to do it on the model layer you should consider using a service object.
Assuming you have a hash like this:
hash = { "hello" => { "hello" => "hello", "world" => { "hello" => "world", "world" => { "hello" => "world" } } }, "world" => "hello" }
Then add a function that transforms the "ello" part of all keys and values into "i" (meaning that "hello" and "yellow" will become "hi" and "yiw")
def transform_hash(hash, &block)
hash.inject({}){ |result, (key,value)|
value = value.is_a?(Hash) ? transform_hash(value, &block) : value.gsub(/ello/, 'i')
block.call(result, key.gsub(/ello/, 'i'), value)
result
}
end
Use the function like:
new_hash = transform_hash(hash) {|hash, key, value| hash[key] = value }
This will transform your hash and it's values regardless of the nesting level. However, the values should be strings (or another Hash) otherwise you'll get an error. to solve this problem just change the value.is_a?(Hash) conditional a bit.
NOTE that I strongly recommend you NOT to change the keys of the hash!

For a hash of objects in ruby, hash.keys.index(obj) works but hash.has_key?(obj) does not. Why?

Here's my Rails class
class SkinnyEmployee
include ActiveModel::Validations
attr_accessor :uid, :name
validates :uid, :presence => true
def initialize(id, name)
#uid = id
#name = name
end
def ==(other)
puts "Calling =="
raise ArgumentError.new("other is nil or bad in "+self.to_s) if other.nil? or !other.instance_of?(SkinnyEmployee)
return (self.class == other.class && self.uid == other.uid)
end
alias :eql? :==
end
I have a hash of SkinnyEmployee objects. E.g.,
skinny_hash = {SkinnyEmployee.new("123", "xyz") => 1, SkinnyEmployee.new("456", "abc") => 2}
I have another SkinnyEmployee object that I want to look up. E.g.,
entry = SkinnyEmployee.new("456", "abc")
When I do
skinny_hash.keys.index(entry)
I get 1, as expected. But when I do
skinny_hash.has_key?(entry)
I get false.
Why is that? Doesn't has_key? also use == or eql? to find whether a key exists in a hash?
Thanks much for the help!
First, this drove me nuts. What you're doing looked absolutely correct to me, and, as you already know, doesn't work.
I can take you part of the way to a solution:
http://ruby-doc.org/core-2.0.0/Object.html#method-i-hash
quoting:
Generates a Fixnum hash value for this object. This function must have the property that a.eql?(b) implies a.hash == b.hash.
The hash value is used along with eql? by the Hash class to determine if two objects reference the same hash key. Any hash value that exceeds the capacity of a Fixnum will be truncated before being used.
I added:
def hash
1
end
to your SkinnyEmployee Class, and has_key? started returning true. Obviously that's not a solution, but I'm thinking it at least puts you on the path to one.
You have overwritten the eql? method used by Array#index but not the hash method used by Hash#has_key?.
From Ruby docs for Object#hash
Generates a Fixnum hash value for this object. This function must have the property that a.eql?(b) implies a.hash == b.hash.
The Object#hash and Object#eql? methods return equal if and only if the objects occupy the same space in memory. Some classes like Array overwrite both methods to return true if the compared array's have same elements.
For your case you can define the hash method like:
def hash
"#{self.class}_#{self.uid}".hash
end
This would satisfy the docs criteria for hash method given above.
That is happening because the object you are using as a key and they one you are using to search the key are different.
Every time you call SkinnyEmployee.new it will create a new, different, object. For example
employee_1 = SkinnyEmployee.new("123", "xyz")
employee_2 = SkinnyEmployee.new("123", "xyz")
employee_1 == employee_1 #=> true
employee_2 == employee_2 #=> true
employee_2 == employee_1 #=> false
If you call object_id on both employee_1 and employee_2 you will notice that it gives you different id's.
Using has_key? will check for the exact same object, and that won't be the case if you use SkinnyEmployee.new("456", "abc").
You would need a way to retrieve the exact same object, store it in a variable or in the DB, you are using as a key and use it as an attribute for has_key? for it to work.
Hope this can help you.

How to deduplicate the code getting parameters and checking nil in Ruby

token = params[:token]
email = params[:email]
phone_number = params[:phone_number]
iso_code = params[:iso_code]
if token.nil? or email.nil? or phone_number.nil? or iso_code.nil?
raise InvalidParameterException
end
token.strip!
email.strip!
phone_number.strip!
iso_code.strip!
#use the variables
There are many this code in my rails project.
How do you generalization this pattern in Ruby on Rails?
Is it possible with reflection and meta programming?
unless [:token, :email, :phone_number, :iso_code].-(params.keys).empty?
raise InvalidParameterException
end
params.each{|_, v| v.strip!}
Then, just use it like params[:token] each time. Maybe you can use a shorter variable name for params like p.
I don't think that metaprogramming or patterns are necessary in this case, just common sense:
[:token, :email, :phone_number, :iso_code].each do |k|
raise InvalidParameterException if params[k].nil?
params[k] = params[k].strip
end
I've never understood the popularity of this anti-pattern:
par_1 = params[:par_1]
...
par_n = params[:par_n]
Why not use the params[:par_x] instead? It's usually more convenient to work with params variables grouped in a hash than have them stored into bunch of local variables.
You can define the method below :
def verify_presence_define_var_and_strip(params, symbol_list)
symbol_list.each do |s|
raise InvalidParameterException if params[s].nil?
define_method s, params[s].strip
end
end
With this method, your code could be replace by :
verify_presence_define_var_and_strip(params, [:token, :email, :phone_number, :iso_code])
Notice that it will define method and not just set a local variable but you should have the same result if you do not already have a method with this name in your class.
You may prefer to use the instance_variable_set method but you will have to preceed the variable name by an #.
[UPDATE]
If you really want to define local variable and not method / instance variable, I do not know other solution than using eval :
eval "#{s} = #{params[:s].strip}"
But as you will find if you search about eval, it is considered as bad practice, moreover in this case where you will evaluate values from URL / POST parameters !
Create a helper method that access the params hash and iterates through the elements and checks for nil and throws the exception itself or returns a value to the calling method that could throw the exception.
You can iterate any hash like so,
hash.each do |key,value|
#example nil check
if value.nil?
#do what you want
end
end
If you want to raise on nil in your hash of parameters you could do
raise InvalidParameterException if params.values.include? nil
If you only want to raise on some specific parameters you would have first to pick the values associated to those keys:
required_keys = [:key1, :key2, :key3]
raise invalidParameterException if required_keys.map{|k| params[k]}.include? nil
EDIT: Cannot answer because of lack of points but one of the answer does not work I believe:
[:some_key] - {some_key: nil}.keys # => []
If the parameter hash contains one key initialized with value nil (as a result of a failed parse or invalid user input), Array subtraction does not work.

Equivalent of .try() for a hash to avoid "undefined method" errors on nil? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to avoid NoMethodError for nil elements when accessing nested hashes? [duplicate]
(4 answers)
Closed 7 years ago.
In Rails we can do the following in case a value doesn't exist to avoid an error:
#myvar = #comment.try(:body)
What is the equivalent when I'm digging deep into a hash and don't want to get an error?
#myvar = session[:comments][#comment.id]["temp_value"]
# [:comments] may or may not exist here
In the above case, session[:comments]try[#comment.id] doesn't work. What would?
You forgot to put a . before the try:
#myvar = session[:comments].try(:[], #comment.id)
since [] is the name of the method when you do [#comment.id].
The announcement of Ruby 2.3.0-preview1 includes an introduction of Safe navigation operator.
A safe navigation operator, which already exists in C#, Groovy, and
Swift, is introduced to ease nil handling as obj&.foo. Array#dig and
Hash#dig are also added.
This means as of 2.3 below code
account.try(:owner).try(:address)
can be rewritten to
account&.owner&.address
However, one should be careful that & is not a drop in replacement of #try. Take a look at this example:
> params = nil
nil
> params&.country
nil
> params = OpenStruct.new(country: "Australia")
#<OpenStruct country="Australia">
> params&.country
"Australia"
> params&.country&.name
NoMethodError: undefined method `name' for "Australia":String
from (pry):38:in `<main>'
> params.try(:country).try(:name)
nil
It is also including a similar sort of way: Array#dig and Hash#dig. So now this
city = params.fetch(:[], :country).try(:[], :state).try(:[], :city)
can be rewritten to
city = params.dig(:country, :state, :city)
Again, #dig is not replicating #try's behaviour. So be careful with returning values. If params[:country] returns, for example, an Integer, TypeError: Integer does not have #dig method will be raised.
The most beautiful solution is an old answer by Mladen Jablanović, as it lets you to dig in the hash deeper than you could with using direct .try() calls, if you want the code still look nice:
class Hash
def get_deep(*fields)
fields.inject(self) {|acc,e| acc[e] if acc}
end
end
You should be careful with various objects (especially params), because Strings and Arrays also respond to :[], but the returned value may not be what you want, and Array raises exception for Strings or Symbols used as indexes.
That is the reason why in the suggested form of this method (below) the (usually ugly) test for .is_a?(Hash) is used instead of (usually better) .respond_to?(:[]):
class Hash
def get_deep(*fields)
fields.inject(self) {|acc,e| acc[e] if acc.is_a?(Hash)}
end
end
a_hash = {:one => {:two => {:three => "asd"}, :arr => [1,2,3]}}
puts a_hash.get_deep(:one, :two ).inspect # => {:three=>"asd"}
puts a_hash.get_deep(:one, :two, :three ).inspect # => "asd"
puts a_hash.get_deep(:one, :two, :three, :four).inspect # => nil
puts a_hash.get_deep(:one, :arr ).inspect # => [1,2,3]
puts a_hash.get_deep(:one, :arr, :too_deep ).inspect # => nil
The last example would raise an exception: "Symbol as array index (TypeError)" if it was not guarded by this ugly "is_a?(Hash)".
The proper use of try with a hash is #sesion.try(:[], :comments).
#session.try(:[], :comments).try(:[], commend.id).try(:[], 'temp_value')
Update: As of Ruby 2.3 use #dig
Most objects that respond to [] expect an Integer argument, with Hash being an exception that will accept any object (such as strings or symbols).
The following is a slightly more robust version of Arsen7's answer that supports nested Array, Hash, as well as any other objects that expect an Integer passed to [].
It's not fool proof, as someone may have created an object that implements [] and does not accept an Integer argument. However, this solution works great in the common case e.g. pulling nested values from JSON (which has both Hash and Array):
class Hash
def get_deep(*fields)
fields.inject(self) { |acc, e| acc[e] if acc.is_a?(Hash) || (e.is_a?(Integer) && acc.respond_to?(:[])) }
end
end
It can be used the same as Arsen7's solution but also supports arrays e.g.
json = { 'users' => [ { 'name' => { 'first_name' => 'Frank'} }, { 'name' => { 'first_name' => 'Bob' } } ] }
json.get_deep 'users', 1, 'name', 'first_name' # Pulls out 'Bob'
say you want to find params[:user][:email] but it's not sure whether user is there in params or not. Then-
you can try:
params[:user].try(:[], :email)
It will return either nil(if user is not there or email is not there in user) or otherwise the value of email in user.
As of Ruby 2.3 this gets a little easier. Instead of having to nest try statements or define your own method you can now use Hash#dig (documentation).
h = { foo: {bar: {baz: 1}}}
h.dig(:foo, :bar, :baz) #=> 1
h.dig(:foo, :zot) #=> nil
Or in the example above:
session.dig(:comments, #comment.id, "temp_value")
This has the added benefit of being more like try than some of the examples above. If any of the arguments lead to the hash returning nil then it will respond nil.
#myvar = session.fetch(:comments, {}).fetch(#comment.id, {})["temp_value"]
From Ruby 2.0, you can do:
#myvar = session[:comments].to_h[#comment.id].to_h["temp_value"]
From Ruby 2.3, you can do:
#myvar = session.dig(:comments, #comment.id, "temp_value")
Another approach:
#myvar = session[:comments][#comment.id]["temp_value"] rescue nil
This might also be consider a bit dangerous because it can hide too much, personally I like it.
If you want more control, you may consider something like:
def handle # just an example name, use what speaks to you
raise $! unless $!.kind_of? NoMethodError # Do whatever checks or
# reporting you want
end
# then you may use
#myvar = session[:comments][#comment.id]["temp_value"] rescue handle
When you do this:
myhash[:one][:two][:three]
You're just chaining a bunch of calls to a "[]" method, an the error occurs if myhash[:one] returns nil, because nil doesn't have a [] method. So, one simple and rather hacky way is to add a [] method to Niclass, which returns nil: i would set this up in a rails app as follows:
Add the method:
#in lib/ruby_extensions.rb
class NilClass
def [](*args)
nil
end
end
Require the file:
#in config/initializers/app_environment.rb
require 'ruby_extensions'
Now you can call nested hashes without fear: i'm demonstrating in the console here:
>> hash = {:foo => "bar"}
=> {:foo=>"bar"}
>> hash[:foo]
=> "bar"
>> hash[:doo]
=> nil
>> hash[:doo][:too]
=> nil
Andrew's answer didn't work for me when I tried this again recently. Maybe something has changed?
#myvar = session[:comments].try('[]', #comment.id)
The '[]' is in quotes instead of a symbol :[]
Try to use
#myvar = session[:comments][#comment.id]["temp_value"] if session[:comments]

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