Multi-Dimensional Array in Ruby on Rails?

Question

I'm wondering if its possible to do multidimensional arrays in rails?

I'd like to get something like to formulate some data:

apple => 'tasty', 'red', 'round'
cereal => 'milk', 'breakfast'
name => 'tags'

Where I'm trying to get the name-value pair where the right side is tags so when I call the name, I can get tags.

EDIT:

I currently have this

@array = ['apple', 'cereal', 'name']

But would like to add tags to these

@array = ['apple'=>['tasty', 'red', 'round'], 'cereal' => ['milk', 'breakfast'], 'name' => ['tags']]

I wanted to do something like this, so when I do a loop to output only the names, and the associated tags.

Get from where? For what? That's not a "multi-dimensional array", it's a hash with array values, at least so far. — Dave Newton
– Dave Newton, Commented Apr 14, 2013 at 1:58
@DaveNewton I edited my question, maybe its more clear? I guess its not a multi dimension array yet, but would like to get some kind of basis, if I have to do more — hellomello
– hellomello, Commented Apr 14, 2013 at 2:30

FluffyJack · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-14 02:00:29Z

1

Like Dave Newton said above in the question's comments, it's called a hash, it's for things like key => value. Hash's can use Array's as values, Array's can use Hashes as values.

{apple: ['tasty', 'red', 'round'], cereal: ['milk', 'breakfast'], name: ['tags']}

answered Apr 14, 2013 at 2:00

FluffyJack

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FluffyJack Over a year ago

No, you need to put the curly braces around it { and } instead of normal array ones. If you have the => you need curly braces. E.g. @array = {'apple'=>['tasty', 'red', 'round'], 'cereal' => ['milk', 'breakfast'], 'name' => ['tags']}

pierrotlefou · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-14 04:53:27Z

0

What you want is called Hash, whose element are key-value pair. The key should be is string or symbol ;the value could be any object.

In you specific case, apple is the key, and ['tasty', 'red', 'round'] is the value.

Check out this link for more about Hash in Ruby.

answered Apr 14, 2013 at 4:53

pierrotlefou

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Joe · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-14 05:11:05Z

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Have you heard of YAML? You can put your data in YAML format in a file, read it in, and it automatically will create your hashes and arrays for you:

apple:
   - tasty
   - red
   - round
cereal:
   - milk
   - breakfast
name: tags

and then in ruby: require 'yaml'

file=YAML.load_file(filename)
file.each_pair do |key, value|
   ...etc

answered Apr 14, 2013 at 5:11

Joe

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