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lindseyk
4,506 PointsHash.shift()
Does Hash.shift always return an array with the first ("index zero") key-value pair? I'm just confused because I thought one of the main differences between hashes and arrays is that hashes are not searchable by index? Do the items in a hash remain in a specified order? Thanks!
1 Answer
Andrew Stelmach
12,583 PointsThe best thing to do when you have a question like this is to open irb and have a play. That's what I did:
h = {one: 1, two: 2, three: 3}
h.shift
=> [:one, 1]
h
=> {:two => 2, :three => 3}
So, the shift method is destructive. It returns an array of the first key/value pair of the hash and also 'mutates' the hash.
The other way to find this out is to google "ruby hash shift" - the top result is the ruby docs for hash methods - find the 'shift' method in the left hand box and click on it. That jumps to the shift method down the page (here). It's easy to see what the shift method does there. It's not always as clear as that, but in this case it's easy to instantly see what it does.
lindseyk
4,506 Pointslindseyk
4,506 PointsThanks! My question was not actually about what the shift function does. I do understand that, but the fact that this function works is confusing to me, because I thought that hashes, dictionaries, etc, are not indexed?