The easiest way is to construct your Hash with a block argument: hash = Hash.new { |h, k| h[k] = { } } hash[‘a’][‘b’] = 1 hash[‘a’][‘c’] = 1 hash[‘b’][‘c’] = 1 puts hash.inspect # “{“a”=>{“b”=>1, “c”=>1}, “b”=>{“c”=>1}}” This form for new creates a new empty Hash as the default value. You don’t want this: … Read more
Traditionally, you really had to do something like this: structure[:a] && structure[:a][:b] However, Ruby 2.3 added a method Hash#dig that makes this way more graceful: structure.dig :a, :b # nil if it misses anywhere along the way There is a gem called ruby_dig that will back-patch this for you.
Ruby 2.3.0 introduced a new method called dig on both Hash and Array that solves this problem entirely. name = params.dig(:company, :owner, :name) It returns nil if the key is missing at any level. If you are using a version of Ruby older than 2.3, you can use the ruby_dig gem or implement it yourself: … Read more