Best way to convert strings to symbols in hash

Question

What\'s the (fastest/cleanest/straightforward) way to convert all keys in a hash from strings to symbols in Ruby?

This would be handy when parsing YAML.

Answer 1

Would something like the following work?

new_hash = Hash.new
my_hash.each { |k, v| new_hash[k.to_sym] = v }

It'll copy the hash, but you won't care about that most of the time. There's probably a way to do it without copying all the data.