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Ruby Ruby Collections Ruby Hashes Working with Hash Values

Chelsey Darrington
Chelsey Darrington
7,956 Points
Posted by Chelsey Darrington
Chelsey Darrington
7,956 Points

Ruby Collections hash challenge: "The 'has_value?' method was not called"?

The task is to use the has_value? method to determine if the value "Bread" exists. If it does, set a new key in the hash for "food" and its value as "true". The error that is returned is "The 'has_value?' method was not called" but when I try it in irb it works. I'm pretty sure I'm calling the has_value? method, but obviously something is wrong. I even added it in specifically above the if-statement to make sure it would see it, but it still doesn't recognize it. Thanks in advance for the help!

Here is my code (first hash provided by Treehouse):

grocery_item = { "item" => "Bread", "quantity" => 1, "brand" => "Treehouse Bread Company" }

grocery_item.has_value?("Bread")

if grocery_item.has_value?("Bread") == true grocery_item = { "item" => "Bread", "quantity" => 1, "brand" => "Treehouse Bread Company", "food" => true } end

hash.rb 
grocery_item = { "item" => "Bread", "quantity" => 1, "brand" => "Treehouse Bread Company" }

grocery_item.has_value?("Bread")

if grocery_item.has_value?("Bread") == true
  grocery_item = { "item" => "Bread", "quantity" => 1, "brand" => "Treehouse Bread Company", "food" => true }
end

1 Answer

Alexander Davison
Alexander Davison
65,469 Points

There's some stuff you can eliminate in here that the challenge probably expected you to eliminate.

hash.rb 
grocery_item = { "item" => "Bread", "quantity" => 1, "brand" => "Treehouse Bread Company" }

if grocery_item.has_value?("Bread")
  grocery_item["food"] = true
end
  1. I eliminated the second line of code. It doesn't change the effect at all and it is probably a good idea to remove.
  2. You don't need the == true part because the has_value?() method already returns a boolean (true or false)
  3. Lastly, and most importantly, you don't need so much code in the if block! The challenge probably doesn't want you to copy-and-paste and then add the value into that new hash. To add a value to a hash in Ruby, you just have to select the item from the hash (which doesn't exist) then assign a value to that.

I hope this helps. ~Alex

Chelsey Darrington
Chelsey Darrington
7,956 Points
Chelsey Darrington
Chelsey Darrington
7,956 Points

Thank you so much for your help, Alex.

I knew I had way too much code there, and I definitely knew ruby would have a beautiful and much more succinct solution.

~Chelsey

Alexander Davison
Alexander Davison
65,469 Points

You are welcome. :)

I like Ruby because of it's flexibility as well :smile: