How to get the latest x entries of a table in Lua? - lua

Question

If I have (for example) a table with 300 entries, how would I get the latest x entries only?
I was thinking of doing the next, but I'm wondering if there is a better/more optimized way to do this exact thing.
local TestTable = {}
-- Populate table
for i = 1, 300, 1 do
print('Adding: ' .. i)
table.insert(TestTable , i)
end
-- Get latest x of table
function GetLatestFromTable(OriginalTable, Amount)
local TableLength = #OriginalTable
local Retval = {}
for i = 1, Amount, 1 do
if TableLength - i <= 0 then break end -- Dont allow to go under 0
table.insert(Retval, OriginalTable[TableLength - i])
print("Adding to Retval: " .. OriginalTable[TableLength - i] .. ' (Index: ' .. TableLength - i .. ')')
end
return Retval
end
print(#TestTable)
local LatestTable = GetLatestFromTable(TestTable, 10)
print(#LatestTable)

Answer 1

For keys in sequence (and values are string/number) a call to table.concat() allows range parameter.
local tab = {"One", "Two", "Three", "Four", "Five"}
print(table.concat(tab, '\n', #tab - 1, #tab)) -- Last two entries
See: table.concat()

Answer 2

As mentioned by #Luke100000, one way could be to use Lua custom iterators. In Lua, an iterator is a special function which, when called, will return the next value. It is made possible by the fact that functions are first-class citizen in Lua and they can refer to previous scope with a mecanism named closure.
To answer the question, one could start implement a general iterator over a given range.
function IterateRange (Table, Min, Max)
local ClosureIndex = Min - 1
local ClosureMax = math.min(Max, #Table)
local function Closure ()
if (ClosureIndex < ClosureMax) then
ClosureIndex = ClosureIndex + 1
return Table[ClosureIndex]
end
end
return Closure
end
IterateRange is a function returning an anonymous function. The anonymous function does not take any parameter. It simply update the ClosureIndex index defined in the local scope of IterateRange and return the table value.
The first thing that the anonymous function do is to increment ClosureIndex. For that reason, ClosureIndex must be initialized to Min - 1.
This function works as one might expect:
TestTable = {}
for i = 1, 300, 1 do
print('Adding: ' .. i)
table.insert(TestTable , i)
end
for Value in IterateRange(TestTable, 290, 300) do
print(Value)
end
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
Now, it's trivial to reuse this general iterator to iterate over the last N entries of a given table:
function IterateLastEntries (Table, Count)
local TableSize = #Table
local StartIndex = (TableSize - Count)
return IterateRange(Table, StartIndex, TableSize)
end
It also work as one might expect:
TestTable = {}
for i = 1, 300, 1 do
print('Adding: ' .. i)
table.insert(TestTable , i)
end
for Value in IterateLastEntries(TestTable, 10) do
print(Value)
end
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
And finally, to summarize all this in a fully copy & pasteable solution:
TestTable = {}
for i = 1, 300, 1 do
print('Adding: ' .. i)
table.insert(TestTable , i)
end
function IterateRange (Table, Min, Max)
local ClosureIndex = Min - 1
local ClosureMax = math.min(Max, #Table)
local function Closure ()
if (ClosureIndex < ClosureMax) then
ClosureIndex = ClosureIndex + 1
return Table[ClosureIndex]
end
end
return Closure
end
function IterateLastEntries (Table, Count)
local TableSize = #Table
local StartIndex = (TableSize - Count)
return IterateRange(Table, StartIndex, TableSize)
end
for Value in IterateLastEntries(TestTable, 10) do
print(Value)
end
This should return:
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
I will let the OP update the code in order to achieve the same results for 30 entries.