title: Accessing a hash with symbol or integer
body: <p>I have this hash:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@current_user.birthday = { "birthday" =&gt; "12/01/1978", "id" =&gt; "524626626" }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I would like to grab the date <code>"12/01/1978"</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I tried <code>@current_user.birthday[:birthday]</code>, only to get <code>no implicit conversion of Symbol into Integer</code></p>
  
  <p>What's the proper way?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT</p>
  
  <p>I think the output is a string instead</p>
  
  <p><code>puts @current_user.birthday</code> gives me <code>{"birthday"=&gt;"09/21/1985", "id"=&gt;"425495284312580"}</code></p>
  
  <p><code>puts @current_user.birthday[0..3]</code> gives me <code>{"bi</code></p>
  
  <p>I can possibly get it by <code>@current_user.birthday[14..23]</code> which puts out <code>12/01/1978</code>. But is there a better way, in the event there are multiple birthdays</p>