dasil003-safe-nested-hash 0.1.0

data/LICENSE

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+Copyright (c) 2009 Gabe da Silveira
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
+a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
+"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
+without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
+distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
+permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
+the following conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
+included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
+EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
+MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
+NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
+LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
+OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
+WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

data/README.md

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+# SafeNestedHash
+
+Allows you to populate nested hashes without initializing every level first:
+
+    h = SafeNestedHash.new
+    h[1][2][3] = :foo
+    h
+    => {1 => {2 => {3 => :foo}}}
+
+Don't be tempted by more concise implementations such as can be found at http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/111524.  The fundamental challenge to overcome here is that accessing a non-existent key should not alter the original hash, yet setting a deeply nested hash needs to attach to the original hash (potentially) several levels up.  This is accomplished by means of a custom UndefinedHash class which tracks lookup path and reconstructs it if an assignment is found at the end: 
+
+    h = SafeNestedHash.new
+    h[1]
+    => #<SafeNestedHash::UndefinedHash:0x473d648 @first_key=1, @base={}, @keychain=[]>
+
+    h = SafeNestedHash.new
+    h[1][2][3]
+    => #<SafeNestedHash::UndefinedHash:0x473bca8 @first_key=1, @base={}, @keychain=[2, 3]>
+
+    h = SafeNestedHash.new
+    h[1][2][3] = :foo
+    h[1][2][4][5][6]
+    => #<SafeNestedHash::UndefinedHash:0x4737464 @first_key=4, @base={3=>:foo}, @keychain=[5, 6]>
+    h
+    => {1=>{2=>{3=>:foo}}}
+
+To check for existence of a key you must use nil?.  Smelly I know, and you can't trivially differentiate from an actual nil stored in the hash, but look Ma, no monkey patching:
+
+    h = SafeNestedHash.new
+    h[1][2][3] = :foo
+    h[1][2][3].nil?
+    => false
+    h[2].nil?
+    => true
+    h[2][3].nil?
+    => true
+
+## Copyright
+
+Copyright (c) 2009 Gabe da Silveira. See LICENSE for details.

data/VERSION.yml

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+--- 
+:major: 0
+:minor: 1
+:patch: 0

data/lib/safe_nested_hash.rb

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+class SafeNestedHash < Hash
+  def [](key)
+    if has_key?(key)
+      super
+    else
+      UndefinedHash.new(self, key)
+    end
+  end
+
+  class UndefinedHash #:nodoc:
+    def initialize(base, key)
+      @base = base
+      @first_key = key
+      @keychain = []
+    end
+
+    def nil?
+      true
+    end
+
+    def [](key)
+      @keychain << key
+      self
+    end
+
+    def []=(key, value)
+      @keychain << key
+      @base[@first_key] = build_chain(@keychain, value)
+    end
+
+    private
+      def build_chain(remaining, value)
+        if remaining.empty?
+          value
+        else
+          key = remaining.shift
+          hash = SafeNestedHash.new
+          hash[key] = build_chain(remaining, value)
+          hash
+        end
+      end
+  end
+end

data/test/safe_nested_hash_test.rb

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+require 'test_helper'
+
+class SafeNestedHashTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
+  context "empty safe_nested_hash" do
+    setup do
+      @hash = SafeNestedHash.new
+    end
+
+    should "return an undefined hash for key" do
+      assert_equal SafeNestedHash::UndefinedHash, @hash[1].class
+    end
+
+    should "return an undefined_hash for nested key" do
+      assert_equal SafeNestedHash::UndefinedHash, @hash[1][2].class
+    end
+
+    should "define a key" do
+      @hash[1] = 'a'
+      assert_equal 'a', @hash[1]
+    end
+
+    should "define a nested key" do
+      @hash[1][2][3] = 'c'
+      assert_equal 'c', @hash[1][2][3]
+    end
+  end
+
+  context "nested safe_nested_hash" do
+    setup do
+      @hash = SafeNestedHash.new
+      @hash[1][2][3] = 'a'
+      @hash[2] = 'b'
+    end
+
+    should "return an undefined hash for new nested key" do
+      assert_equal SafeNestedHash::UndefinedHash, @hash[3][4].class
+    end
+
+    should "return an undefined hash for partially defined nested key" do
+      assert_equal SafeNestedHash::UndefinedHash, @hash[1][4].class
+    end
+
+    should "return an undefined hash which returns true for nil?" do
+      assert @hash[1][4].nil?
+    end
+
+    should "not clobber existing value when adding to a partial chain" do
+      @hash[1][2][4][5] = 'c'
+      assert_equal 'c', @hash[1][2][4][5]
+    end
+
+    should "raise error if attempting to extend non-hash" do
+      assert_raises IndexError do
+        @hash[2][3] = 'd'
+      end
+    end
+  end
+end

data/test/test_helper.rb

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+require 'rubygems'
+require 'test/unit'
+require 'shoulda'
+
+$LOAD_PATH.unshift(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', 'lib'))
+$LOAD_PATH.unshift(File.dirname(__FILE__))
+require 'safe_nested_hash'
+
+class Test::Unit::TestCase
+end

metadata

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+--- !ruby/object:Gem::Specification 
+name: dasil003-safe-nested-hash
+version: !ruby/object:Gem::Version 
+  version: 0.1.0
+platform: ruby
+authors: 
+- Gabe da Silveira
+autorequire: 
+bindir: bin
+cert_chain: []
+
+date: 2009-04-01 00:00:00 -07:00
+default_executable: 
+dependencies: []
+
+description: 
+email: gabe@websaviour.com
+executables: []
+
+extensions: []
+
+extra_rdoc_files: 
+- README.md
+- LICENSE
+files: 
+- README.md
+- VERSION.yml
+- lib/safe_nested_hash.rb
+- test/safe_nested_hash_test.rb
+- test/test_helper.rb
+- LICENSE
+has_rdoc: true
+homepage: http://github.com/dasil003/safe-nested-hash
+post_install_message: 
+rdoc_options: 
+- --inline-source
+- --charset=UTF-8
+require_paths: 
+- lib
+required_ruby_version: !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement 
+  requirements: 
+  - - ">="
+    - !ruby/object:Gem::Version 
+      version: "0"
+  version: 
+required_rubygems_version: !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement 
+  requirements: 
+  - - ">="
+    - !ruby/object:Gem::Version 
+      version: "0"
+  version: 
+requirements: []
+
+rubyforge_project: 
+rubygems_version: 1.2.0
+signing_key: 
+specification_version: 2
+summary: Populate deep nested hashes without initialization situps
+test_files: []
+