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

our version: it also cleans the empty strings and nil values

class Hash

  def compact
    delete_if{|k, v|

      (v.is_a?(Hash) and v.respond_to?('empty?') and v.compact.empty?) or
          (v.nil?)  or
          (v.is_a?(String) and v.empty?)
    }
  end

end