How to Access Nested Elements of a Hash with a Single String Key

How do you access nested elements of a hash with a single string key?

You can get there with inject:

def t(key)
    key.to_s.split('.').inject(@trans) { |h, k| h[k.to_sym] }
end

Error checking and "no such entry" checking is left as an exercise.

Use an Array to access nested Hash keys

You could make use of the newer method Hash#dig (ruby 2.3+) to access the nested hash, and then set the value on that:

# ideally this might be a method on Hash, so you wouldn't need to pass it in
def deep_set(hash, path, value)
  *path, final_key = path
  to_set = path.empty? ? hash : hash.dig(*path)

  return unless to_set
  to_set[final_key] = value
end

hash = {
  "foo" => {
    "bar" => { }
  }
}

deep_set(hash, ["foo", "bar", "baz"], "xxxxxx")
deep_set(hash, ["baz"], "yyyyyy")
deep_set(hash, ["foo", "baz", "bar"], "zzzzzz")
puts hash
# => {"foo"=>{"bar"=>{"baz"=>"xxxxxx"}}, "baz"=>"yyyyyy"}

Accessing elements of nested hashes in ruby

The way I usually do this these days is:

h = Hash.new { |h,k| h[k] = {} }

This will give you a hash that creates a new hash as the entry for a missing key, but returns nil for the second level of key:

h['foo'] -> {}
h['foo']['bar'] -> nil

You can nest this to add multiple layers that can be addressed this way:

h = Hash.new { |h, k| h[k] = Hash.new { |hh, kk| hh[kk] = {} } }

h['bar'] -> {}
h['tar']['zar'] -> {}
h['scar']['far']['mar'] -> nil

You can also chain indefinitely by using the default_proc method:

h = Hash.new { |h, k| h[k] = Hash.new(&h.default_proc) }

h['bar'] -> {}
h['tar']['star']['par'] -> {}

The above code creates a hash whose default proc creates a new Hash with the same default proc. So, a hash created as a default value when a lookup for an unseen key occurs will have the same default behavior.

EDIT: More details

Ruby hashes allow you to control how default values are created when a lookup occurs for a new key. When specified, this behavior is encapsulated as a Proc object and is reachable via the default_proc and default_proc= methods. The default proc can also be specified by passing a block to Hash.new.

Let's break this code down a little. This is not idiomatic ruby, but it's easier to break it out into multiple lines:

1. recursive_hash = Hash.new do |h, k|
2.   h[k] = Hash.new(&h.default_proc)
3. end

Line 1 declares a variable recursive_hash to be a new Hash and begins a block to be recursive_hash's default_proc. The block is passed two objects: h, which is the Hash instance the key lookup is being performed on, and k, the key being looked up.

Line 2 sets the default value in the hash to a new Hash instance. The default behavior for this hash is supplied by passing a Proc created from the default_proc of the hash the lookup is occurring in; ie, the default proc the block itself is defining.

Here's an example from an IRB session:

irb(main):011:0> recursive_hash = Hash.new do |h,k|
irb(main):012:1* h[k] = Hash.new(&h.default_proc)
irb(main):013:1> end
=> {}
irb(main):014:0> recursive_hash[:foo]
=> {}
irb(main):015:0> recursive_hash
=> {:foo=>{}}

When the hash at recursive_hash[:foo] was created, its default_proc was supplied by recursive_hash's default_proc. This has two effects:

1. The default behavior for recursive_hash[:foo] is the same as recursive_hash.
2. The default behavior for hashes created by recursive_hash[:foo]'s default_proc will be the same as recursive_hash.

So, continuing in IRB, we get the following:

irb(main):016:0> recursive_hash[:foo][:bar]
=> {}
irb(main):017:0> recursive_hash
=> {:foo=>{:bar=>{}}}
irb(main):018:0> recursive_hash[:foo][:bar][:zap]
=> {}
irb(main):019:0> recursive_hash
=> {:foo=>{:bar=>{:zap=>{}}}}

Accessing values in nested hash

To start, you need to understand what iterating over a hash will give you.

Consider this:

exp = {
  fam: {cty: "bk", ins: 3},
  spec: {cty: "man", ins: 2},
  br: {cty: "qns", ins: 1},
  aha: {cty: "man", ins: 0}
}
exp.map { |e, c, value| [e, c, value] }
# => [[:fam, {:cty=>"bk", :ins=>3}, nil], [:spec, {:cty=>"man", :ins=>2}, nil], [:br, {:cty=>"qns", :ins=>1}, nil], [:aha, {:cty=>"man", :ins=>0}, nil]]

This is basically what you're doing as you loop and Ruby passes the block the key/value pairs. You're telling Ruby to give you the current hash key in e, the current hash value in c and, since there's nothing else being passed in, the value parameter becomes nil.

Instead, you need a block variable for the key, one for the value:

    exp.map { |k, v| [k, v] }
# => [[:fam, {:cty=>"bk", :ins=>3}], [:spec, {:cty=>"man", :ins=>2}], [:br, {:cty=>"qns", :ins=>1}], [:aha, {:cty=>"man", :ins=>0}]]

Notice that the nil values are gone.

Rewriting your code taking that into account, plus refactoring it for simplicity:

exp = {
  fam:  {cty: 'bk',  ins: 3},
  spec: {cty: 'man', ins: 2},
  br:   {cty: 'qns', ins: 1},
  aha:  {cty: 'man', ins: 0}
}

exp.each do |k, v|
  if v[:cty] == 'man'
    puts k
  end
end

# >> spec
# >> aha

Now it's returning the keys you want, so it becomes easy to grab the entire hashes. select is the appropriate method to use when you're trying to locate specific things:

exp = {
  fam:  {cty: 'bk',  ins: 3},
  spec: {cty: 'man', ins: 2},
  br:   {cty: 'qns', ins: 1},
  aha:  {cty: 'man', ins: 0}
}

e = exp.select { |k, v| v[:cty] == 'man' }
# => {:spec=>{:cty=>"man", :ins=>2}, :aha=>{:cty=>"man", :ins=>0}}

Older versions of Ruby didn't maintain hash output from the hash iterators so we'd have to coerce back to a hash:

e = exp.select { |k, v| v[:cty] == 'man' }.to_h
# => {:spec=>{:cty=>"man", :ins=>2}, :aha=>{:cty=>"man", :ins=>0}}

Find key/value pairs deep inside a hash containing an arbitrary number of nested hashes and arrays

Here's a simple recursive solution:

def nested_hash_value(obj,key)
  if obj.respond_to?(:key?) && obj.key?(key)
    obj[key]
  elsif obj.respond_to?(:each)
    r = nil
    obj.find{ |*a| r=nested_hash_value(a.last,key) }
    r
  end
end

h = { foo:[1,2,[3,4],{a:{bar:42}}] }
p nested_hash_value(h,:bar)
#=> 42

Extract specific keys from variedly nested hash

▶ hash = { "BreadCrumbs" => {
▷     "Id" => 375,        
▷     "Name" => "Willingen",        
▷     "Parent" => {        
▷       "Id" => 52272,            
▷       "Name" => "Wintersport-Arena Sauerland",            
▷       "Parent" => {            
▷         "Id" => 8,                 
▷         "Name" => "Germany"                
▷       }              
▷     }          
▷ }} 
▶ def concat hash
▷   [hash['Name'], hash['Parent'] ? concat(hash['Parent']) : nil]
▷ end  
▶ (concat hash['BreadCrumbs']).flatten.compact
#⇒ ["Willingen", "Wintersport-Arena Sauerland", "Germany"]

I do not flatten on every iteration so that the result still contains hierarchy:

▶ concat hash['BreadCrumbs']
#⇒ ["Willingen", ["Wintersport-Arena Sauerland", ["Germany", nil]]]

The requested string as the result:

▶ (concat hash['BreadCrumbs']).flatten.compact.join ', '
#⇒ "Willingen, Wintersport-Arena Sauerland, Germany"

How do I get the elements of a complex nested hash in ruby?

I used a modified 7stud's answer.

Since I also need the values of the keys (e.g., JAVA, JDK, /usr/...., I ended doing this:

alternatives.keys.each do |alt_keys| # Gets the values for JAVA, JDK keys
  alternatives[alt_keys].each do |arr| # Gets the values for the /usr/... keys
    puts "array key: " + arr.to_s
    alternatives[alt_keys][arr].each do |elmt|
      puts "elem: " + elmt
    end
  end
end

Thanks to all, I will try the other answers too later.

Find a value in a nested hash

Found a way to do it with nested maps, a compact and a flatten.first:

fnd="theFoo"
data.map{|t,th|th.map{|s,sh|sh.map{|f,fh|fh["id"]if fh["name"]==fnd}.compact}}.flatten.first

==> 1

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