Change string to hash with ruby

Question

I have ugly string that looks like this:

"\"New\"=>\"0\""

Which will be the best way to converting it into hash object?

It not works: JSON::ParserError: 757: unexpected token at '"New":"0"' — Mateusz Urbański, Jul 02 '15 at 06:53
I tried and it works for me. Probably you are ignoring `{` and `}` in the string — usmanali, Jul 02 '15 at 06:59
This looks like the result of a `Hash#inspect`. Instead of trying to parse this string into a proper data structure, you should instead try to use the original hash and don't convert it into a string first. This data has no business being in a string there and you should save you the hassle of trying to extract it there.. — Holger Just, Jul 02 '15 at 07:05

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

Problem with "\"New\"=>\"0\"" is it does not look like a Hash. So first step should be to manipulate it to look like a Hash:

"{" + a + "}"
# => "{\"New\"=>\"0\"}"

Now once you have a hash looking string you can convert it into Hash like this:

eval "{" + a + "}"
# => {"New"=>"0"}

However there is still one issue, eval is not safe and inadvisable to use. So lets manipulate the string further to make it look json-like and use JSON.parse:

require `json`
JSON.parse ("{" + a + "}").gsub("=>",":")
# => {"New"=>"0"}

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 02 '15 at 06:54

2

How about JSON.parse(string.gsub("=>", ":"))

answered Jul 02 '15 at 06:54

Niels Kristian

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you need to manipulate string, else you'll get `JSON::ParserError: 757: unexpected token at '"New":"0"'` – shivam Jul 02 '15 at 06:55

John La Rooy · Answer 3 · 2015-07-02T07:30:35.217

2

You can use regex to pull out the key and value. Then create Hash directly

Hash[*"\"New\"=>\"0\"".scan(/".*?"/)]

Hard to nail down the best way if you can't tell us exactly the general format of those strings. You may not even need the regex. eg

Hash[*"\"New\"=>\"0\"".split('"').values_at(1,3)]

Also works for "\"Rocket\"=>\"=>\""

edited Jul 02 '15 at 07:30

answered Jul 02 '15 at 06:57

John La Rooy

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Change string to hash with ruby

3 Answers3