Removing all empty elements from a hash / YAML?

Question

How would I go about removing all empty elements (empty list items) from a nested Hash or YAML file?

Answer 1

I know this thread is a bit old but I came up with a better solution which supports Multidimensional hashes. It uses delete_if? except its multidimensional and cleans out anything with a an empty value by default and if a block is passed it is passed down through it's children.

# Hash cleaner
class Hash
    def clean!
        self.delete_if do |key, val|
            if block_given?
                yield(key,val)
            else
                # Prepeare the tests
                test1 = val.nil?
                test2 = val === 0
                test3 = val === false
                test4 = val.empty? if val.respond_to?('empty?')
                test5 = val.strip.empty? if val.is_a?(String) && val.respond_to?('empty?')

                # Were any of the tests true
                test1 || test2 || test3 || test4 || test5
            end
        end

        self.each do |key, val|
            if self[key].is_a?(Hash) && self[key].respond_to?('clean!')
                if block_given?
                    self[key] = self[key].clean!(&Proc.new)
                else
                    self[key] = self[key].clean!
                end
            end
        end

        return self
    end
end