Dictionary

The Dictionary class is a Hash that preserves order. So it has some array-like extensions also. By defualt a Dictionary object preserves insertion order, but any order can be specified including alphabetical key order.

Usage

Just require this file and use Dictionary instead of Hash.

  # You can do simply
  hsh = Dictionary.new
  hsh['z'] = 1
  hsh['a'] = 2
  hsh['c'] = 3
  p hsh.keys     #=> ['z','a','c']

  # or using Dictionary[] method
  hsh = Dictionary['z', 1, 'a', 2, 'c', 3]
  p hsh.keys     #=> ['z','a','c']

  # but this don't preserve order
  hsh = Dictionary['z'=>1, 'a'=>2, 'c'=>3]
  p hsh.keys     #=> ['a','c','z']

  # Dictionary has useful extensions: push, pop and unshift
  p hsh.push('to_end', 15)       #=> true, key added
  p hsh.push('to_end', 30)       #=> false, already - nothing happen
  p hsh.unshift('to_begin', 50)  #=> true, key added
  p hsh.unshift('to_begin', 60)  #=> false, already - nothing happen
  p hsh.keys                     #=> ["to_begin", "a", "c", "z", "to_end"]
  p hsh.pop                      #=> ["to_end", 15], if nothing remains, return nil
  p hsh.keys                     #=> ["to_begin", "a", "c", "z"]
  p hsh.shift                    #=> ["to_begin", 30], if nothing remains, return nil

Usage Notes

• You can use order_by to set internal sort order.
• #<< takes a two element [k,v] array and inserts.
• Use ::auto which creates Dictionay sub-entries as needed.
• And ::alpha which creates a new Dictionary sorted by key.

Acknowledgments

Dictionary is a ported of OrderHash 2.0 Copyright (c) 2005 Jan Molic.

People who have contributed to this class since then include:

• Andrew Johnson (merge, to_a, inspect, shift and Hash[])
• Jeff Sharpe (reverse and reverse!)
• Thomas Leitner (has_key? and key?)

Copyright (c) 2005, 2009 Jan Molic, Thomas Sawyer