Ruby: merge nested hash

Question

I would like to merge a nested hash.

a = {:book=>
    [{:title=>\"Hamlet\",
      :author=>\"William Shakespeare\"
      }]}

b = {:book=>
    [{         


        

Answer 1

Here is even better solution for recursive merging that uses refinements and has bang method alongside with block support. This code does work on pure Ruby.

module HashRecursive
    refine Hash do
        def merge(other_hash, recursive=false, &block)
            if recursive
                block_actual = Proc.new {|key, oldval, newval|
                    newval = block.call(key, oldval, newval) if block_given?
                    [oldval, newval].all? {|v| v.is_a?(Hash)} ? oldval.merge(newval, &block_actual) : newval
                }   
                self.merge(other_hash, &block_actual)
            else
                super(other_hash, &block)
            end
        end
        def merge!(other_hash, recursive=false, &block)
            if recursive
                self.replace(self.merge(other_hash, recursive, &block))
            else
                super(other_hash, &block)
            end
        end
    end
end

using HashRecursive

After using HashRecursive was executed you can use default Hash::merge and Hash::merge! as if they haven't been modified. You can use blocks with these methods as before.

The new thing is that you can pass boolean recursive (second argument) to these modified methods and they will merge hashes recursively.

---

Example for simple usage is written at this answer. Here is an advanced example.

The example in this question is bad because it got nothing to do with recursive merging. Following line would meet question's example:

a.merge!(b) {|k,v1,v2| [v1, v2].all? {|v| v.is_a?(Array)} ? v1+v2 : v2}

Let me give you a better example to show the power of the code above. Imagine two rooms, each have one bookshelf in it. There are 3 rows on each bookshelf and each bookshelf currently have 2 books. Code:

room1   =   {
    :shelf  =>  {
        :row1   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "Hamlet",
                :author =>  "William Shakespeare"
            }
        ],
        :row2   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "Pride and Prejudice",
                :author =>  "Jane Austen"
            }
        ]
    }
}

room2   =   {
    :shelf  =>  {
        :row2   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "The Great Gatsby",
                :author =>  "F. Scott Fitzgerald"
            }
        ],
        :row3   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "Catastrophe Theory",
                :author =>  "V. I. Arnol'd"
            }
        ]
    }
}

We are going to move books from the shelf in the second room to the same rows on the shelf in the first room. First we will do this without setting recursive flag, i.e. same as using unmodified Hash::merge!:

room1.merge!(room2) {|k,v1,v2| [v1, v2].all? {|v| v.is_a?(Array)} ? v1+v2 : v2}
puts room1

The output will tell us that the shelf in the first room would look like this:

room1   =   {
    :shelf  =>  {
        :row2   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "The Great Gatsby",
                :author =>  "F. Scott Fitzgerald"
            }
        ],
        :row3   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "Catastrophe Theory",
                :author =>  "V. I. Arnol'd"
            }
        ]
    }
}

As you can see, not having recursive forced us to throw out our precious books.

Now we will do the same thing but with setting recursive flag to true. You can pass as second argument either recursive=true or just true:

room1.merge!(room2, true) {|k,v1,v2| [v1, v2].all? {|v| v.is_a?(Array)} ? v1+v2 : v2}
puts room1

Now the output will tell us that we actually moved our books:

room1   =   {
    :shelf  =>  {
        :row1   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "Hamlet",
                :author =>  "William Shakespeare"
            }
        ],
        :row2   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "Pride and Prejudice",
                :author =>  "Jane Austen"
            },
            {
                :title  =>  "The Great Gatsby",
                :author =>  "F. Scott Fitzgerald"
            }
        ],
        :row3   =>  [
            {
                :title  =>  "Catastrophe Theory",
                :author =>  "V. I. Arnol'd"
            }
        ]
    }
}

That last execution could be rewritten as following:

room1 = room1.merge(room2, recursive=true) do |k, v1, v2|
    if v1.is_a?(Array) && v2.is_a?(Array)
        v1+v2
    else
        v2
    end
end
puts room1

or

block = Proc.new {|k,v1,v2| [v1, v2].all? {|v| v.is_a?(Array)} ? v1+v2 : v2}
room1.merge!(room2, recursive=true, &block)
puts room1

That's it. Also take a look at my recursive version of Hash::each(Hash::each_pair) here.