Can you explain the difference between ActiveSupport’s HashWithIndifferentAccess and Ruby’s Hash ?

The main difference between Ruby's Hash and ActiveSupport's HashWithIndifferentAccess is that HashWithIndifferentAccess allows you to access keys using either strings or symbols interchangeably, while in a regular Hash, strings and symbols are considered different keys[1][2][3].

For example, with a regular Hash:

framework = { name: 'Ruby on Rails', language: 'Ruby' }
framework[:name] # "Ruby on Rails" 
framework['language'] # nil

Accessing the key with a string returns nil because the key was defined using a symbol.

With HashWithIndifferentAccess, you can access keys consistently regardless of whether you use a string or symbol[2][3]:

require "active_support/hash_with_indifferent_access"

framework = ActiveSupport::HashWithIndifferentAccess.new
framework[:name] = 'Ruby on Rails'
puts framework[:name] # Ruby on Rails
puts framework['name'] # Ruby on Rails

HashWithIndifferentAccess is commonly used in Rub...