Why I cannot set the value of this hash key? - ruby

Question

task = {:project=>1000,
:order=>0,
:partial_image=>nil,
:options=>{
:height=>50,
:width=>50,
:start_row=>1,
:start_column=>1,
:end_row=>50,
:end_column=>50,
:scene=>0}}
project = redis.hget('active_projects', task[:project])
=>
{:name=>"Pov",
:tasks=>
{0=>
{:project=>1000,
:order=>0,
:partial_image=>nil,
:options=>
{:height=>50,
:width=>50,
:start_row=>1,
:start_column=>1,
:end_row=>50,
:end_column=>50,
:scene=>"blabla"
}
}
},
:id=>1000,
:image=>"",
:options=>
{:height=>100,
:width=>50,
:scene=>"blabla"
}
}
task[:partial_image] = 'blablabla'
project[:tasks][task[:order]] = task # this is line 37
Failure/Error: completed_task = DPovray::Task.perform(task)
TypeError:
can't convert Symbol into Integer
# ./lib/jobs/job.rb:37:in `[]'
# ./lib/jobs/job.rb:37:in `block in perform'
# ./lib/jobs/job.rb:35:in `perform'
# ./spec/task_spec.rb:22:in `block (4 levels) in <top (required)>'
The code is in https://github.com/Nerian/DPovray
The test that fails can be run with rspec spec/task_spec.rb

Answer 1

Actually project = redis.hget('active_projects', task[:project]) is returning a string, not a ruby hash. So that is why it fails.
I am playing with https://github.com/nateware/redis-objects to see if I can do what I want to do.
Also, instead of doing:
Redis.new.hset('active_projects', active_project[:id], active_project)
You can do:
Redis.new.hset('active_projects', active_project[:id], Marshal.dump(active_project))
And it just works, thanks to hash marshaling.
Nonetheless, I do not consider this a good solution. I don't like to use Marshaling as it is much difficult do debug by looking at the database.
Also I just got a:
incompatible marshal file format (can't be read)
format version 4.8 required; 123.58 given
So let us discover a different approach...
edit:
Now I am playing with JSON.dump and JSON.parse. They seem a better approach.
Edit:
I ended up encapsulating this hash into a real object. So I have Project class and a Task class. In each one I define the methods to_json and self.json_create(o) to that they can be convert to and from JSON.
It works quite well.