On Friday, July 12, 2013 12:49:11 AM UTC-7, Ruby-Forum.com User wrote:
>
> One reason to use Symbols is that they are immutable. When you're
> passing one around as an argument or Hash key, it won't change.
> Another is that multiple instances of a Symbol are the same object,
> making a smaller memory footprint than Strings.
>
> A string is not a symbol. Some structures will use to_s or to_sym to
> allow you to pass either as an argument, but that's not their default
> behaviour.
>
> > {'a'=>1,:a=>2}
> => {"a"=>1, :a=>2}
>
> > {'a'=>1,'a'=>2}
> => {"a"=>2}
>
I know about this behavior, but this doesn't answer the question I posted.
I tested my question above.
I can create a hash in ruby and explicitly give it symbols for keys and it
will work.
But when I retrieve a hash from a yml file, I cannot reference the keys as
symbols.
Are these true or false?
> yaml['config'] == yaml[:config]
> yaml['config']['another_setting'] == yaml[:config][:another_setting]
>
The answer to both is false.
So that said, where/how else can symbols be used outside of being hash
keys? Thanks.
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