Sort hash by key, return hash in Ruby

Question

Would this be the best way to sort a hash and return Hash object (instead of Array):

h = {\"a\"=>1, \"c\"=>3, \"b\"=>2, \"d\"=>4}
# => {\"a\"=         


        

Answer 1

You gave the best answer to yourself in the OP: Hash[h.sort] If you crave for more possibilities, here is in-place modification of the original hash to make it sorted:

h.keys.sort.each { |k| h[k] = h.delete k }

Answer 2

I liked the solution in the earlier post.

I made a mini-class, called it class AlphabeticalHash. It also has a method called ap, which accepts one argument, a Hash, as input: ap variable. Akin to pp (pp variable)

But it will (try and) print in alphabetical list (its keys). Dunno if anyone else wants to use this, it's available as a gem, you can install it as such: gem install alphabetical_hash

For me, this is simple enough. If others need more functionality, let me know, I'll include it into the gem.

EDIT: Credit goes to Peter, who gave me the idea. :)

Answer 3

I've always used sort_by. You need to wrap the #sort_by output with Hash[] to make it output a hash, otherwise it outputs an array of arrays. Alternatively, to accomplish this you can run the #to_h method on the array of tuples to convert them to a k=>v structure (hash).

hsh ={"a" => 1000, "b" => 10, "c" => 200000}
Hash[hsh.sort_by{|k,v| v}] #or hsh.sort_by{|k,v| v}.to_h

There is a similar question in "How to sort a Ruby Hash by number value?".

Answer 4

Sort hash by key, return hash in Ruby

With destructuring and Hash#sort

hash.sort { |(ak, _), (bk, _)| ak <=> bk }.to_h

Enumerable#sort_by

hash.sort_by { |k, v| k }.to_h

Hash#sort with default behaviour

h = { "b" => 2, "c" => 1, "a" => 3  }
h.sort         # e.g. ["a", 20] <=> ["b", 30]
hash.sort.to_h #=> { "a" => 3, "b" => 2, "c" => 1 }

Note: < Ruby 2.1

array = [["key", "value"]] 
hash  = Hash[array]
hash #=> {"key"=>"value"}

Note: > Ruby 2.1

[["key", "value"]].to_h #=> {"key"=>"value"}

Answer 5

@ordered = {}
@unordered.keys.sort.each do |key|
  @ordered[key] = @unordered[key]
end

Answer 6

ActiveSupport::OrderedHash is another option if you don't want to use ruby 1.9.2 or roll your own workarounds.