My First Hash

Objectives

1. Practice instantiating hashes
2. Practice adding key/value pairs to hashes
3. Practice retrieving information from hashes

Instructions

Refer back to the previous lesson to help you solve this lab!

Challenge I: Instantiating Hashes

• In the my_hash method, use the literal constructor to set a variable called my_hash equal to a hash with key/value pairs of your choice.

• Remember, key/values pairs are associative. It doesn't make sense to have a key/value pair of "my_name" => 78. It does make sense to have a key/value pair of "my_name" => "Herman Melville" (if you happen to be that author, of course).

Challenge II: Hash with Data

• In the shipping_manifest method, set a variable called shipping_manifest equal to a hash.
• fill that hash with key/value pairs that describe the following information:
  • We have 5 whale bone corsets, 2 porcelain vases and 3 oil paintings. Your hash should have the following comma separated key/value pairs:
    • "whale bone corsets" => 5
    • "porcelain vases" => 2
    • "oil paintings" => 3
• Note: Build this hash yourself! Don't just copy and paste from the following methods. :)

Challenge III: Retrieving Data

• In the retrieval method we've given you the shipping_manifest hash that you built out in the previous challenge. Use the [] hash method described in the previous readme to return the value of the "oil paintings" key of the shipping_manifest hash.
• For example, if we have the following hash:

hash = {"key1" => "value1"}

We can return the value of "key1" like this:

hash["key1"]

Challenge IV: Adding Data

• In the adding method, we've once again given you the shipping_manifest hash. Use the []= method to add the following key/valuve pair to the hash:
  • "pearl necklace" => 1
  • This method must return the newly-added-to shipping_hash.
  • Remember that the return value of using the []= method is the value of the key/value pair you added. We need our adding method to return the shipping_manifest.
  • Here's a refresher on the []= method:

hash = {"key1" => "value1"}
hash["key2"] = "value2"
# returns "value2"

puts hash
# => {"key1" => "value1", "key2" => "value2"}