Fallback value for hash in Ruby

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:33:54 +0000

When building applications in Ruby, almost every developer works with hashes on a daily basis. We especially run into nested hashes all the time, for example:

u = { 'user' => { 'id' => 1, 'lang' => { 'id' => 1, 'name' => 'Ruby' } } }
u['user']['lang']['name'] # => "Ruby"

Chaining keys like this looks cool, but it only works as long as every key actually holds a value:

u = { 'user' => { 'id' => 2, 'lang' => nil } }
u['user']['lang']['name'] # undefined method '[]' for nil (NoMethodError)

To fix this error, you could use the send method (though it looks pretty terrifying):

Dig on Artem Yegorov

Fallback value for hash in Ruby