Hash with Dot Access

Rails' ActiveSupport gem provides HashWithIndifferentAccess which allows you to access hash keys with either strings or symbols. This gem provides HashWithDotAccess which subclasses HashWithIndifferentAccess and allows you to access or set those keys using dot access (aka methods). It utilizes method_missing to access key data if available, and you can also set data using keyname=.

Example

require "hash_with_dot_access"
 
hsh = HashWithDotAccess::Hash.new({a: 1, b: 2, c: "abc"})
# => {"a"=>1, "b"=>2, "c"=>"abc"}

hsh.a
# => 1

hsh.c
# => "abc"

hsh.d = "Indeed!"
hsh.d
# => "Indeed!"

hsh[:d]
# => "Indeed!"

hsh["d"]
# => "Indeed!"

hsh2 = {test: "dot access"}.with_dot_access
hsh2.test
# => "dot access"

## Nested hashes work too! Pairs nicely with lonely operator: &.

nested = {a: 1, b: {c: 3}}.with_dot_access
nested.b.c
# => 3

nested&.d&.e&.f
# => nil

## You can also set default return values when key is missing

hsh = {a: 1, b: 2}.with_dot_access
hsh.default = 0
hsh.a
# => 1
hsh.x
# => 0

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

$ bundle add hash_with_dot_access

Then simply require hash_with_dot_access:

require "hash_with_dot_access"

Caveats

As with any Ruby object which provides arbitrary data through dynamic method calls, you may encounter collisions between your key names and existing Hash methods. For example:

hsh = {each: "this won't work!"}.with_dot_access
hsh.each
# => #<Enumerator: {"each"=>"this won't work!"}:each>
#
# Uh oh!

Of course, the easy fix is to simply use standard ways of accessing hash data in these cases:

hsh = {each: "this will work!"}.with_dot_access
hsh[:each]
# => "this will work!"

Development

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/bridgetownrb/hash_with_dot_access.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Hash with Dot Access project’s codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.

bridgetownrb / hash_with_dot_access