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

class Hash   
  def compact
    def _empty?(val)
      case val
      when Hash     then val.compact.empty?
      when Array    then val.all? { |v| _empty?(v) }
      when String   then val.empty?
      when NilClass then true
      # ... custom checking 
      end
    end

    delete_if { |_key, val| _empty?(val) }   
  end 
end