Welcome to the Treehouse Community

The Treehouse Community is a meeting place for developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels to get support. Collaborate here on code errors or bugs that you need feedback on, or asking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project. Join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today. (Note: Only Treehouse students can comment or ask questions, but non-students are welcome to browse our conversations.)

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and a supportive community. Start your free trial today.

Ruby Ruby Collections Build a Grocery List Program Create a Method That Returns a Hash

Posted by Will Long
Will Long
5,449 Points

why does this say that it is not returning the hash when it explicitly say "return hash"

def create_shopping_list

hash = ["name" => "name", "item" => "array.new"] return hash

end

list = create_shopping_list

shopping_list.rb 
def create_shopping_list

  hash = ["name" => "name", "item" => "array.new"]
  return hash

end

list =  create_shopping_list

1 Answer

Gilbert Kennen
Gilbert Kennen
10,661 Points

Hashes use curly braces, not square brackets. You are creating an array with a hash in the middle of it.

[{"name" => "name", "item" => "array.new"}]

You probably want to do:

def create_shopping_list

  hash = {"name" => "name", "item" => "array.new"}
  hash

end

While I recognize this is a trivial method, standard Ruby practice is to only use return when you are breaking out of the middle of a method, otherwise it always returns the result of the last expression of the method.

Will Long
Will Long
5,449 Points

ohh