How to remove a key from Hash and get the remainin

Question

To add a new pair to Hash I do:

{:a => 1, :b => 2}.merge!({:c => 3})   #=> {:a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}

Is there a similar way to delete a key from Hash ?

This works:

{:a => 1, :b => 2}.reject! { |k| k == :a }   #=> {:b => 2}

but I would expect to have something like:

{:a => 1, :b => 2}.delete!(:a)   #=> {:b => 2}

It is important that the returning value will be the remaining hash, so I could do things like:

foo(my_hash.reject! { |k| k == my_key })

in one line.

Answer 1

You can use except! from the facets gem:

>> require 'facets' # or require 'facets/hash/except'
=> true
>> {:a => 1, :b => 2}.except(:a)
=> {:b=>2}

The original hash does not change.

EDIT: as Russel says, facets has some hidden issues and is not completely API-compatible with ActiveSupport. On the other side ActiveSupport is not as complete as facets. In the end, I'd use AS and let the edge cases in your code.

Answer 2

This would also work: hash[hey] = nil

Answer 3

Why not just use:

hash.delete(key)

Answer 4

It's was great if delete return the delete pair of the hash. I'm doing this:

hash = {a: 1, b: 2, c: 3}
{b: hash.delete(:b)} # => {:b=>2}
hash  # => {:a=>1, :c=>3} 

Answer 5

Rails has an except/except! method that returns the hash with those keys removed. If you're already using Rails, there's no sense in creating your own version of this.

class Hash
  # Returns a hash that includes everything but the given keys.
  #   hash = { a: true, b: false, c: nil}
  #   hash.except(:c) # => { a: true, b: false}
  #   hash # => { a: true, b: false, c: nil}
  #
  # This is useful for limiting a set of parameters to everything but a few known toggles:
  #   @person.update(params[:person].except(:admin))
  def except(*keys)
    dup.except!(*keys)
  end

  # Replaces the hash without the given keys.
  #   hash = { a: true, b: false, c: nil}
  #   hash.except!(:c) # => { a: true, b: false}
  #   hash # => { a: true, b: false }
  def except!(*keys)
    keys.each { |key| delete(key) }
    self
  end
end

Answer 6

If you want to use pure Ruby (no Rails), don't want to create extension methods (maybe you need this only in one or two places and don't want to pollute namespace with tons of methods) and don't want to edit hash in place (i.e., you're fan of functional programming like me), you can 'select':

>> x = {:a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}
=> {:a=>1, :b=>2, :c=>3}
>> x.select{|x| x != :a}
=> {:b=>2, :c=>3}
>> x.select{|x| ![:a, :b].include?(x)}
=> {:c=>3}
>> x
=> {:a=>1, :b=>2, :c=>3}