Class Mash
In: lib/mash.rb
Parent: Hash

Mash allows you to create pseudo-objects that have method-like accessors for hash keys. This is useful for such implementations as an API-accessing library that wants to fake robust objects without the overhead of actually doing so. Think of it as OpenStruct with some additional goodies.

A Mash will look at the methods you pass it and perform operations based on the following rules:

  • No punctuation: Returns the value of the hash for that key, or nil if none exists.
  • Assignment (=): Sets the attribute of the given method name.
  • Existence (?): Returns true or false depending on whether that key has been set.
  • Bang (!): Forces the existence of this key, used for deep Mashes. Think of it as "touch" for mashes.

Basic Example

  mash = Mash.new
  mash.name? # => false
  mash.name = "Bob"
  mash.name # => "Bob"
  mash.name? # => true

Hash Conversion Example

  hash = {:a => {:b => 23, :d => {:e => "abc"}}, :f => [{:g => 44, :h => 29}, 12]}
  mash = Mash.new(hash)
  mash.a.b # => 23
  mash.a.d.e # => "abc"
  mash.f.first.g # => 44
  mash.f.last # => 12

Bang Example

  mash = Mash.new
  mash.author # => nil
  mash.author! # => <Mash>

  mash = Mash.new
  mash.author!.name = "Michael Bleigh"
  mash.author # => <Mash name="Michael Bleigh">

Methods

[]   deep_merge   deep_merge!   deep_update   default   dup   initializing_reader   inspect   key?   merge!   new   to_hash   to_s   update  

Constants

VERSION = '0.0.3'

External Aliases

[] -> regular_reader
regular_writer -> :
inspect -> regular_inspect
key? -> picky_key?

Public Class methods

If you pass in an existing hash, it will convert it to a Mash including recursively descending into arrays and hashes, converting them as well.

Public Instance methods

Retrieves an attribute set in the Mash. Will convert any key passed in to a string before retrieving.

Performs a deep_update on a duplicate of the current mash.

deep_merge!(other_hash)

Alias for deep_update

Recursively merges this mash with the passed in hash, merging each hash in the hierarchy.

Borrowed from Merb‘s Mash object.

Parameters

key<Object>:The default value for the mash. Defaults to nil.

Alternatives

If key is a Symbol and it is a key in the mash, then the default value will be set to the value matching the key.

Duplicates the current mash as a new mash.

This is the bang method reader, it will return a new Mash if there isn‘t a value already assigned to the key requested.

Prints out a pretty object-like string of the defined attributes.

merge!(other_hash)

Alias for update

Converts a mash back to a hash (with stringified keys)

to_s()

Alias for inspect

Parameters

other_hash<Hash>:: A hash to update values in the mash with. Keys will be stringified and Hashes will be converted to Mashes.

Returns

Mash:The updated mash.

[Validate]