Symbol keys vs string keys decision in Ruby - Hands-On Comparison

Symbol keys vs string keys decision

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple contact list app. Each contact has a name and a phone number. You want to store this information in a Ruby hash.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to create hashes with symbol keys and string keys, and decide which one to use for your contact list.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a hash with string keys for name and phone

Create a hash with symbol keys for name and phone

Compare accessing values using string keys and symbol keys

Print the results to see the difference

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Storing and accessing data in hashes is common in Ruby apps like contact lists, settings, and configurations.

💼 Career

Understanding symbol vs string keys helps write efficient and clear Ruby code, a valuable skill for Ruby developers.

1

Create a hash with string keys

Create a hash called contact_string_keys with these exact entries: 'name' => 'Alice' and 'phone' => '123-456-7890'.

Ruby

# Create the contact_string_keys hash with string keys
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use curly braces {} to create a hash. Use strings as keys with the => symbol.

2

Create a hash with symbol keys

Create a hash called contact_symbol_keys with these exact entries: name: 'Alice' and phone: '123-456-7890'.

Ruby

contact_string_keys = { 'name' => 'Alice', 'phone' => '123-456-7890' }
# Create the contact_symbol_keys hash with symbol keys
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use symbols as keys by writing the key name followed by a colon, like name:.

3

Access values using string and symbol keys

Write two lines: one to get the name from contact_string_keys using the string key 'name', and one to get the name from contact_symbol_keys using the symbol key :name. Store them in variables name_from_string and name_from_symbol respectively.

Ruby

contact_string_keys = { 'name' => 'Alice', 'phone' => '123-456-7890' }
contact_symbol_keys = { name: 'Alice', phone: '123-456-7890' }
# Access the name values from both hashes
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets [] with the exact key to get the value from a hash.

4

Print the results

Print the values of name_from_string and name_from_symbol on separate lines using puts.

Ruby

contact_string_keys = { 'name' => 'Alice', 'phone' => '123-456-7890' }
contact_symbol_keys = { name: 'Alice', phone: '123-456-7890' }
name_from_string = contact_string_keys['name']
name_from_symbol = contact_symbol_keys[:name]
# Print the names
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use puts to print each variable on its own line.