I have searched around, but can't find any built-in way to do convert an object (of my own creation) to a hash of values, so must needs look elsewhere.
My thought was to use .instance_variables, strip the @ from the front of each variable, and then use the attr_accessor for each to create the hash.
What do you guys think? Is that the 'Ruby Way', or is there a better way to do this?
Assuming all data you want to be included in the hash is stored in instance variables:
class Foo
attr_writer :a, :b, :c
def to_hash
Hash[*instance_variables.map { |v|
[v.to_sym, instance_variable_get(v)]
}.flatten]
end
end
foo = Foo.new
foo.a = 1
foo.b = "Test"
foo.c = Time.now
foo.to_hash
=> {:b=>"Test", :a=>1, :c=>Fri Jul 09 14:51:47 0200 2010}
I dont know of a native way to do this, but I think your idea of basically just iterating over all instance variables and building up a hash is basically the way to go. Its pretty straight-forward.
You can use Object.instance_variables to get an Array of all instance variables which you then loop over to get their values.
do you need a hash? or do you just need the convenience of using a hash?
if you need a has Geoff Lanotte's suggestion in Cody Caughlan's answer is nice. otherwise you could overload [] for your class. something like.
class Test
def initialize v1, v2, v3
@a = x
@b = y
@c = z
end
def [] x
instance_variable_get("@" + x)
end
end
n = Test.new(1, 2, 3)
p n[:b]
Better use, <object>.attributes
it will returns a hash.
It is much more clean solution.
Cheers!
