Feature #13045: Passing a Hash with String keys as keyword arguments

• Status: Rejected
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[ch1c0t (Anatoly Chernow)]

To the following method

def new request:, response:
end

I'd like to be able to pass both

hash_with_symbol_keys = { request: another_hash, response: another_hash2 }
hash_with_string_keys = { 'request' => another_hash, 'response' => another_hash2 }

I would make a lot cleaner parsing many things returned with string keys(like the output of YAML.load).

If you don't like the above feature, could you please at least consider adding Hash#symbolize_keys(like you did with Hash#transform_values)?

[ch1c0t (Anatoly Chernow)]

• Description updated (diff)

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

• Description updated (diff)

I'm not a fun for this idea, since Symbol and String are different.

[ch1c0t (Anatoly Chernow)]

Nobuyoshi Nakada wrote:

I'm not a fun for this idea, since Symbol and String are different.

They are different. However, sometimes they are treated as the same(for example, when passed as a method name to BasicObject#send).

Hashes with string keys are ubiquitous. Should this idea be accepted, processing them would become a lot simpler.

(Thank you for your corrections of my initial message.)

[shevegen (Robert A. Heiler)]

I would agree with a way/method to convert string-keys into symbol-keys.

I have no idea if this should be Hash#symbolize_keys or another name - perhaps
#transform_keys and allow either to_string or to_symbol conversion - but I
agree with a convenience method that could turn keys into one or the other.

Perhaps this would also reduce the need for strange things such as
HashWithIndifferentAccess. Newcomers will always wonder whether they should
use strings or symbols (or even worse, both at the same time in the same
hash).

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

Robert A. Heiler wrote:

Perhaps this would also reduce the need for strange things such as
HashWithIndifferentAccess. Newcomers will always wonder whether they should
use strings or symbols (or even worse, both at the same time in the same
hash).

First of all, why do you want to access them indifferently?
It just sounds a diabolical habit, to me.

[matz (Yukihiro Matsumoto)]

• Status changed from Open to Rejected

Rejected. method to convert string-keys into symbol-keys or transform_keys may be good ideas.

Matz.