Check if two arrays have the same contents (in any order)

Question

I\'m using Ruby 1.8.6 with Rails 1.2.3, and need to determine whether two arrays have the same elements, regardless of whether or not they\'re in the same order. One of the

Answer 1

If you expect [:a, :b] != [:a, :a, :b] to_set doesn't work. You can use frequency instead:

class Array
  def frequency
    p = Hash.new(0)
    each{ |v| p[v] += 1 }
    p
  end
end

[:a, :b].frequency == [:a, :a, :b].frequency #=> false
[:a, :b].frequency == [:b, :a].frequency #=> true