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

Question

A web service is returning a hash that contains an unknown number of nested hashes, some of which contain an array, which in turn contains an unknown number of nested hashes

Answer 1

Because Rails 5 ActionController::Parameters no longer inherits from Hash, I've had to modify the method and make it specific to parameters.

module ActionController
  class Parameters
    def deep_find(key, object=self, found=nil)
      if object.respond_to?(:key?) && object.key?(key)
        return object[key]
      elsif object.respond_to?(:each)
        object = object.to_unsafe_h if object.is_a?(ActionController::Parameters)
        object.find { |*a| found = deep_find(key, a.last) }
        return found
      end
    end
  end
end

If the key is found, it returns the value of that key, but it doesn't return an ActionController::Parameter object so Strong Parameters are not preserved.