Double less than Ruby access

I am still very new to Ruby and was wondering how I would access a data element stored in a "double less than" structure:

@email << {:envelope => envelope, :body => body}

If I do

<% @results.email.each do |result| %>

  <%= result %>

<% end %>

I get

bodyTEST TEST envelope#<struct Net::IMAP::Envelope date="Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:20:35 -0700", subject="TEST TEST", from=[#<struct Net::IMAP::Address name="Some Name", route=nil, mailbox="someinbox", host="somehost.com">], sender=[#<struct Net::IMAP::Address name="Somename", route=nil, mailbox="somebox", host="somedomaincom">开发者_C百科], reply_to=[#<struct Net::IMAP::Address name="SomePerson", route=nil, mailbox="somemailbox", host="somehost.com">], to=[#<struct Net::IMAP::Address name=nil, route=nil, mailbox="thisinbox", host="somehost.com">], cc=nil, bcc=nil, in_reply_to=nil, message_id="<C4427977-8A42-46E4-ADB4-1AE88ED9CCDE@mehost.com>">

How do access each element, like body, envelope, sender (within envelope)? result.body doesn't work, nor does result[body].

Thanks!

You should use result[:body] and not result[body]. body is a variable, whereas :body is a symbol (similar to a string).

Notice that you have stored values in the hash with symbols. {:envelope => envelope; :body => body} is storing the content of the variable envelope (the one on the right) as the value against the key :envelope (and the same for body and :body).

Note: This is a nice write up on how Symbols differ from Strings - http://www.robertsosinski.com/2009/01/11/the-difference-between-ruby-symbols-and-strings/

@email << {:envelope => envelope, :body => body}

is simply adding the hash to the @email variable. If it is an Array, then you are adding an element, otherwise, it depends on the implementation of the #<< method. To access the elements, use hash lookup syntax:

result[:envelope] #=> returns the envelope object
result[:envelope].sender #=> returns the envelopes sender 
result[:body] #=> returns the body