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Ruby

Banana Eatsmoney
Banana Eatsmoney
1,333 Points

Is #merge same as adding new key and values?

Seems like the merge method is also just adding a new pair of key and value to the original hash?

What's the difference, if any?

1 Answer

Maciej Czuchnowski
Maciej Czuchnowski
36,441 Points

In short - it RETURNS a new hash that is a combination of the first hash and the hash given as an argument. So it's not exactly adding keys/values, since you're not modifying anything. Both hashes (if they were kept in separate variables) still have the same contents. There is, however, a #merge! method that will modify the first hash, so it literally adds values and keys from the second hash to the first one: https://ruby-doc.org/core-2.2.0/Hash.html#method-i-merge-21