How to remove a key from Hash and get the remaining hash in Ruby/Rails?

Question

To add a new pair to Hash I do:

{:a => 1, :b => 2}.merge!({:c => 3})   #=> {:a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}

Is there a simi

Answer 1

#in lib/core_extensions.rb
class Hash
  #pass single or array of keys, which will be removed, returning the remaining hash
  def remove!(*keys)
    keys.each{|key| self.delete(key) }
    self
  end

  #non-destructive version
  def remove(*keys)
    self.dup.remove!(*keys)
  end
end

#in config/initializers/app_environment.rb (or anywhere in config/initializers)
require 'core_extensions'

I've set this up so that .remove returns a copy of the hash with the keys removed, while remove! modifies the hash itself. This is in keeping with ruby conventions. eg, from the console

>> hash = {:a => 1, :b => 2}
=> {:b=>2, :a=>1}
>> hash.remove(:a)
=> {:b=>2}
>> hash
=> {:b=>2, :a=>1}
>> hash.remove!(:a)
=> {:b=>2}
>> hash
=> {:b=>2}
>> hash.remove!(:a, :b)
=> {}