Converting array/hash to string and converting that string back to array/hash in ruby

Question

I had this array lets say,

array = [{'key' => 0},1]

so now array[0]['key'] has value 0. When I convert it to string like this:

array.to_s

Now the array is not an array its a string which is like this:

"[{'key' => 0},1]"

If I do array[0] now, it will output [

I want to convert this back to array so that I can use array[0]['key'] again.

Full Code:

array = [{'key' => 0},1]
array = array.to_s
puts array[0]['key'] #Should output 0 but it does not output anything

The thing is that I have already saved stuff like that in the database, so now I need to use that stuff back, so the only way is to parse the saved string (which was actually an array).

Possible duplicate of [How do I convert a Ruby string with brackets to an array?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38409/how-do-i-convert-a-ruby-string-with-brackets-to-an-array) — Ilya, Jun 03 '16 at 11:49

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 03 '16 at 11:28

3

string = "[{'key' => 0},1]"
array = eval string
array[0]['key']  # => 0

answered Jun 03 '16 at 11:28

Patrick De Marta

243
3
8

using `eval` in this case is a bad practice. – Ilya Jun 03 '16 at 11:35
I see, thank you for the warning, could you elaborate more please? – Patrick De Marta Jun 03 '16 at 11:37
You can read [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1902744/when-is-eval-in-ruby-justified) question – Ilya Jun 03 '16 at 11:43
@Ilya well I just need to correct my database so I guess its fine. I am not using this on permanent basis. – user1735921 Jun 03 '16 at 11:44

Converting array/hash to string and converting that string back to array/hash in ruby

1 Answers1