Welcome to our exploration of data structures in Ruby! Today, we will delve into Ruby Hashes. Similar to a dictionary or an address book, hashes store data in key-value pairs, allowing for efficient data retrieval and modification. Hashes are essential in Ruby for managing and organizing data with unique identifiers. Let's dive into Ruby hashes to understand these concepts clearly.

Ruby hashes are key-value collections that store data in pairs. They allow you to quickly access a value using its key. For example, a hash can store a friend's contact information, where their name (key) maps to their phone number (value).

In this example, we create a simple hash with names as keys and phone numbers as values. Trying to access a nonexistent key, like "Carol," returns nil.

Ruby hashes offer several operations for adding, updating, and accessing key-value pairs, making data management efficient.

Let's explore how each of these operations works one by one.

You can add or update entries by assigning a value to a key. If the key exists, the value is updated; if it doesn’t, a new key-value pair is added.

This example demonstrates adding key-value pairs to a hash by directly assigning values.