I'm trying to merge to hashes, one using symbols as keys (the defined
default values for my class) and the other using strings as keys
(taken from the params hash).

default = { :name => "Joe", :age => 50 }

params = { "name" => "Bill" }

new_hash = default.merge(params)
>> { :name => "Joe", :age => 50, "name" => "Bill }

What's the Ruby way to handle this so that it overwrites :name with
"name"? Do I need to implement a stringify_keys or symbolize_keys
method like in Rails? I'd like to avoid using strings as the keys in
my default hash.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Stu