What is the closest thing in Erlang to hashes?

Question

What I wanted was a way to pass arguments into functions which resembled a ruby hash map. Although maybe this is a bad fit for Erlang, I'm not sure yet

In Ruby I often used hashes like:

{"a"=>100, "b"=>200}

: What is the closest thing in Erlang?

Update: I have since found this:

http://20bits.com/articles/erlang-an-introduction-to-records/

Is using records a good candidate?

Answer 1

Here You are: dict - Key-Value Dictionary

Post scriptum: I have googled this within 30s so I think You could avoid this asking question ;-)

Edit: To defend my answer:

from_list(List) -> Dict

Types:
List = [{Key, Value}]
Dict = dictionary()

This function converts the key/value list List to a dictionary.

This is a quotation from my link. So You can create hashes exactly the same way as when You use proplists.

Answer 2

proplists, dicts, or gb_trees.

Answer 3

ETS and DETS tables are true hash tables unlike a dict. DETS are for disks storage while ETS are in memory. They are the building blocks for the Mnesia database.