Accessing elements of nested hashes in ruby [duplicate]

Answer 1

You could just build a Hash subclass with an extra variadic method for digging all the way down with appropriate checks along the way. Something like this (with a better name of course):

class Thing < Hash
  def find(*path)
    path.inject(self) { |h, x| return nil if(!h.is_a?(Thing) || h[x].nil?); h[x] }
  end
end

Then just use Things instead of hashes:

>> x = Thing.new
=> {}
>> x[:a] = Thing.new
=> {}
>> x[:a][:b] = 'k'
=> "k"
>> x.find(:a)
=> {:b=>"k"}
>> x.find(:a, :b)
=> "k"
>> x.find(:a, :b, :c)
=> nil
>> x.find(:a, :c, :d)
=> nil