I have a rails API where I’m able to query vehicles and count and group by different attributes. I would like to fill the response with zero values when a group by is used.

Here is a simple example:

data = {
  AUDI: {
    Petrol: 379,
    Diesel: 326,
    Electric: 447
  },
  TESLA: {
    Electric: 779
  }
}

Since Tesla doesn’t have any petrol or diesel cars, then that key isn’t even included in the response. I believe this is a consequence of the group_by in postgres, which doesn’t include zero counts in the results.

I’m trying to create a function which can “fill” the hash with these missing zero values eg.

fill_hash(data)

should return

data = {
  AUDI: {
    Petrol: 379,
    Diesel: 326,
    Electric: 447
  },
  TESLA: {
    Petrol: 0,
    Diesel: 0,
    Electric: 779
  }
}

This simple case I got working with 3 methods:

def collect_keys(hash, keys = [])
  hash.each do |_, value|
    if value.is_a?(Hash)
      keys.concat(value.keys)
      collect_keys(value, keys)
    end
  end
  keys.uniq
end

def fill_missing_keys(hash, all_keys, default_value = 0)
  hash.each do |_, value|
    if value.is_a?(Hash)
      all_keys.each do |k|
        value[k] = default_value unless value.key?(k)
      end
      fill_missing_keys(value, all_keys, default_value)
    end
  end
  hash
end

def fill_hash(hash, default_value = 0)
  all_keys = collect_keys(hash)
  fill_missing_keys(hash, all_keys, default_value)
end

# Example usage:
hash = { a: { x: 1 }, b: { y: 1 } }
filled_hash = complete_hash(hash)
puts filled_hash
# Output should be: {:a=>{:x=>1, :y=>0}, :b=>{:y=>1, :x=>0}}

My problem is that the hashes can get more complicated. The simple case only grouped by 2 attributes, but here is an example where we group by 3 attributes.

{
  AUDI: {
    Deregistered: {
      Diesel: 56
    },
    Registered: {
      Petrol: 379,
      Diesel: 270,
      Electric: 447
    }
  },
  TESLA: {
    Registered: {
      Electric: 779
    }
  }
}

My desired output is:

{
  AUDI: {
    Deregistered: {
      Petrol: 0,
      Diesel: 56,
      Electric: 0
    },
    Registered: {
      Petrol: 379,
      Diesel: 270,
      Electric: 447
    }
  },
  TESLA: {
    Deregistered: {
      Petrol: 0,
      Diesel: 0,
      Electric: 0
    },
    Registered: {
      Petrol: 0,
      Diesel: 0,
      Electric: 779
    }
  }
}

Eg. there’s keys missing in both last and second to last layer.