Rails mapping array of hashes onto single hash
Ruby on-RailsRubyArraysHashRuby on-Rails Problem Overview
I have an array of hashes like so:
[{"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1"}, {"testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}]
And I'm trying to map this onto single hash like this:
{"testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2", "testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1"}
I have achieved it using
par={}
mitem["params"].each { |h| h.each {|k,v| par[k]=v} }
But I was wondering if it's possible to do this in a more idiomatic way (preferably without using a local variable).
How can I do this?
Ruby on-Rails Solutions
Solution 1 - Ruby on-Rails
You could compose Enumerable#reduce and Hash#merge to accomplish what you want.
input = [{"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1"}, {"testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}]
input.reduce({}, :merge)
is {"testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2", "testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1"}
Reducing an array sort of like sticking a method call between each element of it.
For example [1, 2, 3].reduce(0, :+) is like saying 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 and gives 6.
In our case we do something similar, but with the merge function, which merges two hashes.
[{:a => 1}, {:b => 2}, {:c => 3}].reduce({}, :merge)
is {}.merge({:a => 1}.merge({:b => 2}.merge({:c => 3})))
is {:a => 1, :b => 2, :c => 3}
Solution 2 - Ruby on-Rails
How about:
h = [{"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1"}, {"testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}]
r = h.inject(:merge)
Solution 3 - Ruby on-Rails
Every answers until now are advising to use Enumerable#reduce (or inject which is an alias) + Hash#merge but beware, while being clean, concise and human readable this solution will be hugely time consuming and have a large memory footprint on large arrays.
I have compiled different solutions and benchmarked them.
Some options
a = [{'a' => {'x' => 1}}, {'b' => {'x' => 2}}]
# to_h
a.to_h { |h| [h.keys.first, h.values.first] }
# each_with_object
a.each_with_object({}) { |x, h| h.store(x.keys.first, x.values.first) }
# each_with_object (nested)
a.each_with_object({}) { |x, h| x.each { |k, v| h.store(k, v) } }
# map.with_object
a.map.with_object({}) { |x, h| h.store(x.keys.first, x.values.first) }
# map.with_object (nested)
a.map.with_object({}) { |x, h| x.each { |k, v| h.store(k, v) } }
# reduce + merge
a.reduce(:merge) # take wayyyyyy to much time on large arrays because Hash#merge creates a new hash on each iteration
# reduce + merge!
a.reduce(:merge!) # will modify a in an unexpected way
Benchmark script
It's important to use bmbm and not bm to avoid differences are due to the cost of memory allocation and garbage collection.
require 'benchmark'
a = (1..50_000).map { |x| { "a#{x}" => { 'x' => x } } }
Benchmark.bmbm do |x|
x.report('to_h:') { a.to_h { |h| [h.keys.first, h.values.first] } }
x.report('each_with_object:') { a.each_with_object({}) { |x, h| h.store(x.keys.first, x.values.first) } }
x.report('each_with_object (nested):') { a.each_with_object({}) { |x, h| x.each { |k, v| h.store(k, v) } } }
x.report('map.with_object:') { a.map.with_object({}) { |x, h| h.store(x.keys.first, x.values.first) } }
x.report('map.with_object (nested):') { a.map.with_object({}) { |x, h| x.each { |k, v| h.store(k, v) } } }
x.report('reduce + merge:') { a.reduce(:merge) }
x.report('reduce + merge!:') { a.reduce(:merge!) }
end
Note: I initially tested with a 1_000_000 items array but as reduce + merge is costing exponentially much time it will take to much time to end.
Benchmark results
50k items array
Rehearsal --------------------------------------------------------------
to_h: 0.031464 0.004003 0.035467 ( 0.035644)
each_with_object: 0.018782 0.003025 0.021807 ( 0.021978)
each_with_object (nested): 0.018848 0.000000 0.018848 ( 0.018973)
map.with_object: 0.022634 0.000000 0.022634 ( 0.022777)
map.with_object (nested): 0.020958 0.000222 0.021180 ( 0.021325)
reduce + merge: 9.409533 0.222870 9.632403 ( 9.713789)
reduce + merge!: 0.008547 0.000000 0.008547 ( 0.008627)
----------------------------------------------------- total: 9.760886sec
user system total real
to_h: 0.019744 0.000000 0.019744 ( 0.019851)
each_with_object: 0.018324 0.000000 0.018324 ( 0.018395)
each_with_object (nested): 0.029053 0.000000 0.029053 ( 0.029251)
map.with_object: 0.021635 0.000000 0.021635 ( 0.021782)
map.with_object (nested): 0.028842 0.000005 0.028847 ( 0.029046)
reduce + merge: 17.331742 6.387505 23.719247 ( 23.925125)
reduce + merge!: 0.008255 0.000395 0.008650 ( 0.008681)
2M items array (excluding reduce + merge)
Rehearsal --------------------------------------------------------------
to_h: 2.036005 0.062571 2.098576 ( 2.116110)
each_with_object: 1.241308 0.023036 1.264344 ( 1.273338)
each_with_object (nested): 1.126841 0.039636 1.166477 ( 1.173382)
map.with_object: 2.208696 0.026286 2.234982 ( 2.252559)
map.with_object (nested): 1.238949 0.023128 1.262077 ( 1.270945)
reduce + merge!: 0.777382 0.013279 0.790661 ( 0.797180)
----------------------------------------------------- total: 8.817117sec
user system total real
to_h: 1.237030 0.000000 1.237030 ( 1.247476)
each_with_object: 1.361288 0.016369 1.377657 ( 1.388984)
each_with_object (nested): 1.765759 0.000000 1.765759 ( 1.776274)
map.with_object: 1.439949 0.029580 1.469529 ( 1.481832)
map.with_object (nested): 2.016688 0.019809 2.036497 ( 2.051029)
reduce + merge!: 0.788528 0.000000 0.788528 ( 0.794186)
Solution 4 - Ruby on-Rails
Use #inject
hashes = [{"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1"}, {"testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}]
merged = hashes.inject({}) { |aggregate, hash| aggregate.merge hash }
merged # => {"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1", "testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}
Solution 5 - Ruby on-Rails
Here you can use either inject or reduce from Enumerable class as both of them are aliases of each other so there is no performance benefit to either.
sample = [{"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1"}, {"testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}]
result1 = sample.reduce(:merge)
# {"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1", "testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}
result2 = sample.inject(:merge)
# {"testPARAM1"=>"testVAL1", "testPARAM2"=>"testVAL2"}