Is it possible to get the successor and predecessor of the hash key in Ruby 1.9?

Question

I wonder if something like this is possible without iterating over the entire hash:

collection = { red: 1000, green: 120, "yellow" => 1, blue: 999 }

Something like that:

collection.next_key(:red)    #Should return :green
collection.prev_key(:blue)   #Should return "yellow"

EDIT :: I was hoping somehow to gain access to the Ruby Hash member foreand backinternal data structure:

struct st_table_entry {
  unsigned int hash;
  st_data_t key;
  st_data_t record;
  st_table_entry *next;
  st_table_entry *fore, *back; // new in Ruby 1.9
};

( Source )

Answer 1

I think it will work

class Hash
  def next_key(key)
    self.keys[self.keys.find_index(key) + 1]
  end
  def prev_key(key)
    self.keys[self.keys.find_index(key) - 1]
  end
end

But remember that this Hashis why the order of the elements may differ from the one you are writing.