I have a variable type time but sometimes this variable doesn't have anything.
When it is initial, it shouldn't be "000000", I want an empty value without anything (no zeros). Let me explain my problem with the code:
IF lwa_hora IS INITIAL.
CLEAR lwa_hora.
ls_entity-hora = lwa_hora. " Result: 000000 but I don't want any zero
ELSE.
ls_entity-hora = lwa_hora. " Result: 000000
ENDIF.
I tried with CLEAR but nothing happens.
I need this is because in the JavaScript frontend client logic, I need the OData property to contain a falsy value (E.g. null or an empty string "").
But it always has the value "000000" which is not an empty string. Is it possible to make something in the backend to "clear" the variable?
The time data-type in abap (t) is a value-type. It's internally implemented as an integer counting the seconds since midnight. 0 seconds since midnight is a valid value, so it can't have a null-value.
However, ABAP allows you to create a reference to any value-type:
hora TYPE REF TO t.
That means hora will be a reference to a variable of TYPE t. Initially, this reference will be unbound, which is conceptually very similar to a null-reference in other programming languages. You can check that with:
IF ls_entity-hora IS BOUND.
...
IF ls_entity-hora IS NOT BOUND.
You can assign a time value with GET REFERENCE OF lwa_hora INTO ls_entity-hora. But now you have a reference to an existing variable. Change the value of lwa_hora, and the value of ls_entity-hora also changes. That might not always be what you want. So it might be better to create a new piece of data in memory for our reference to point to:
CREATE DATA ls_entity-hora.
Now ls_entity-hora is no longer unbound (or "null" if you want to call it that), it points to a new time-value of 000000. If you want to read or change the value of this nameless piece of data this reference points to, then you can do this with the dereferencing-operator ->*:
ls_entity-hora->* = lwa_hora.
If you intentionally want to set a reference to unbound (or "set the reference to null"), you can do that by clearing the reference:
CLEAR ls_entity-hora.
By the way: Representing a point in time by two separate variables of the types d and t fell out of fashion in the past decade. The current best practice for this situation is to use a single variable of type TIMESTAMP (if you need second precision) or TIMESTAMPL (if you need microsecond precision). A timestamp of 00000000000000 is obviously an illegal value, so it can be used to represent the absence of a point in time. This type also usually makes it much easier to communicate with a SAPUI5 frontend (like in your case), because many of the technologies for making oData services offer automatic conversion between Javascript Date and ABAP TIMESTAMP.
An alternative to heap allocating the time would be to store a boolean next to it, indicating whether it is set or not:
TYPES:
BEGIN OF optional_time,
time TYPE t,
is_null TYPE abap_bool,
END OF optional_time.
DATA(no_time) = VALUE optional_time( is_null = abap_true ).
" Setting to null:
DATA(some_time) = no_time.
" Setting to some time:
some_time = VALUE #( time = '12:30' ).
IF some_time = no_time.
" ...
ENDIF.
This sort of things is probably better to handle on front-end than on back-end.
SAP Gateway serializes ABAP Date/time initial values to NULL in the OData response if the corresponding property is nullable. You need to make sure this property is set to TRUE like in this sample
you can also set this property in runtime
TRY .
lo_action = model->get_entity_type( iv_entity_name = 'Z_REPORTType').
lo_property = lo_action->get_property( iv_property_name = 'Requested_Date').
lo_property->set_nullable( iv_nullable = abap_true ).
CATCH /iwbep/cx_mgw_busi_exception /iwbep/cx_mgw_med_exception /iwbep/cx_mgw_tech_exception INTO DATA(lo_exception).
ENDTRY.
Related
Consider this F# code:
let isSalary employee =
let (fName,lName,Occupation,Department,SalaryType,
HoursPerWeek, AnnualSalary, HourlyWage
) = employee
SalaryType = "Salary"
if(employee.SalaryType = SalaryType) then
true
else
false
Im getting errors in here, any fixes to it?
First things first, please post error messages and a much more specific question. Thanks! But luckily, I can about deduce the error messages from this problem.
Next, if you want to mutate SalaryType after you've deconstructed your employee 8-tuple, you should write using the mutable keyword:
let mutable (fName, lName, Occupation, Department, SalaryType,
HoursPerWeek, AnnualSalary, HourlyWage) = employee
But you shouldn't. This is explained further below.
Next problem: there is no dot notation (no tuple.member) for accessing members of a tuple. It's only possible through deconstruction. So you can't employee.SalaryType.
Here's what looks to be the crux of the problem, and it's a mistake I made many times when I was learning functional programming, and it's a difficult paradigm shift to adapt to. You should not be attempting to mutate data, or in this case, variables. Variables, or values as they are called in F#, shouldn't change, as a broad rule. Functions should be pure.
What this means is that any parameters you pass into a function should not change after leaving the function. The parameter employee should be the same after you return to the calling scope.
There's a few syntactical errors you've made that make it pretty much impossible for me to deduce what you're trying to do in the first place. Please include this in the question.
Also, one last nitpick. As you know, the last expression in an F# function is it's return value. Instead of using an if statement, just return the condition you're testing, like this:
let ...
...
employee.SalaryType = SalaryType <- but remember, you can't use dot notation on tuples; this is just an example
Please read more on
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/language-reference/
I have a SOAP node, that retrieve information from a URL in a tree structure.
Then i have a compute node to define each environment variable to each namespace variable of the SOAP retrieve.
And finally, i have a mapping node, to move the content to my message assembly structure in XML.
The error its giving me it's this (IN THE COMPUTE NODE):
I have a structure like this:
ListDocs
Description
DocType
ListTypes
Attribute
Lenght
Description
Nature
Required
ListDocs
Description
DocType
ListTypes
Attribute
Lenght
Description
Nature
Required
ListDocs
Description
DocType
ListTypes
Attribute
Lenght
Description
Nature
Required
The problem is that, when i do the definition of the variables, I do it like the code below, in the COMPUTE NODE:
WHILE I < InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns:obterTiposDocProcessosResponse.ns:return.ns75:processo.ns75:listaTiposDocumentos
DO
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.description = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs.ns75:description;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.tipoDocumento = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs.ns75:DocType;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.attribute = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs.ns75:listTypes.ns75:atribbute;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.lenght = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs.ns75:listTypes.ns75:lenght;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.description = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs.ns75:listTypes.ns75:description;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.nature = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs.ns75:listTypes.ns75:nature;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.required = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs.ns75:listTypes.ns75:required;
SET I = I+1;
END WHILE;
BUT, in my XML final structure, it only prints the values of my first listDocs, and i want to print all of my listDocs structures.
NOTE: WITH THE WHILE LIKE THIS, IT DOESN'T EVEN WORK. I HAVE TO REMOVE THE WHILE TO PRINT THE FIRST listDocs like i said Above.
Any help?
I NEED HELP TO LOOP THE STRUCTURES, WITH A WHILE OR SOMETHING.
You should try to use the following synthax :
DECLARE I INTEGER 1;
DECLARE J INTEGER;
J = CARDINALITY(InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns:obterTiposDocProcessosResponse.ns:return.ns75:processo.ns75:listaTiposDocumentos[])
WHILE I <= J DO
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.description = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:description;
....
END WHILE;
You only missed the CARDINALITY function to get the number of elements, and also the [] to define the table, and then using this [I] while accessing the elements
Note : in my sample above, the environment will be overridden at each iteration of the loop, so only the last record will be printed. You can use the [I] in the output as well if you want to construct a table in output, or you can use the following code to push each message to the output terminal (this means you have one message in input, and 3 message coming out of the output terminal)
PROPAGATE TO TERMINAL 'Out';
So for example, based on your code, if you want to generate 3 messages based on your input containing multiple element :
DECLARE I INTEGER 1;
DECLARE J INTEGER;
J = CARDINALITY(InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns:obterTiposDocProcessosResponse.ns:return.ns75:processo.ns75:listaTiposDocumentos[])
WHILE I <= J DO
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.description = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:description;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.tipoDocumento = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:DocType;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.attribute = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:listTypes.ns75:atribbute;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.lenght = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:listTypes.ns75:lenght;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.description = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:listTypes.ns75:description;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.nature = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:listTypes.ns75:nature;
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs.listTypes.required = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:listTypes.ns75:required;
PROPAGATE TO TERMINAL 'Out';
END WHILE;
RETURN FALSE;
For your global information, the RETURN TRUE is the instruction "pushing" the message built in the ESQL code to the output terminal. If you use PROPAGATE instruction (same effect), you should RETURN FALSE to avoid sending an empty message after looping on your records. Another way to do it is to propagate on another terminal (i.e : 'out1'), and keep the return true. In this case, you would have all you records coming out from the out1 terminal, and a message going out of the output temrinal (due to the return true) once all the messages have been propagated (this might be useful in many situations)
So the key to understanding IIB and ESQL is that you are looking at in memory Trees built from nodes.
Each Node has pointers/REFERENCEs to PARENT, NEXTSIBLING, PREVSIBLING, FIRSTCHILD and LASTCHILD Nodes.
Nodes also have FIELDNAME, FIELDNAMESPACE, FIELDTYPE and FIELDVALUE attributes.
And last but not least that you are building Output Trees by navigating Input Trees. The Environment Tree, which you are using, is a special long lasting Tree that you can both read from and write to.
So in your code InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs can be thought of as shorthand for instructions to navigate to the ns75:listDocs Node. The dots '.' tell ESQL interpreter the name of the child Node of the current Node. If you were telling someone how to navigate the Nodes it would go something like this.
Start at InputRoot. InputRoot is a special Node that is automatically available to you in your ESQL Modules code.
Navigate to the first child Node of InputRoot that has the name SOAP
Navigate to the first child Node of SOAP that has the name Body
Navigate to the first child Node of Body that has the name listDocs and is in the ns75 namespace.
In the absence of a subscript ESQL assumes you want the first Node that matches the specified name ns75:listDocs and ns75:listDocs[1] both refer to the same Node.
This explains what was happening in your code. You were always navigating to the same listDocs[1] node in the InputRoot and Environment Trees.
#Jerem's code improves on what you were doing by at least navigating across the listDocs nodes in the Input tree.
For each iteration of the loop the subscript [I] gets incremented and thus it chooses a different listDocs Node. The listDocs Nodes are siblings and thus the code will access the first, second and third instance of the listDocs Nodes.
InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[1] <-- Iteration I=1
InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[2] <-- Iteration I=2
InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[3] <-- Iteration I=3
To correct #Jerem's answer you'd need to use subscripts on the lefthand side of the statement as well. Picking the description field as an example you'd need to change your code as follows.
SET Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process.listDocs[I].listTypes.description = InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs[I].ns75:listTypes.ns75:description;
Using subscripts is regarded as a performance no no. Imagine you had 10,000 listDocs this would result in each and every iteration of the loop walking down the tree over the InputRoot, SOAP, Body, ns75:processo Nodes and then across the listDocs sibling nodes until it found the ns75:listDocs[I] Node.
This means by the time we get round to processing ns75:listDocs[10000] it will have had to repetetively walked over all the other listDocs Nodes time and time again, In fact we can calculate it would have walked over (4 x 10,000) + ((10,000 x (10,000 + 1)) / 2) = 50,045,000 Nodes
So it's REFERENCE's to the rescue and also the answer to your question. Try a loop like this.
DECLARE ns75 NAMESPACE 'http://something.or.other.from.your.wsdl';
DECLARE InListDocsRef REFERENCE TO
InputRoot.SOAP.Body.ns75:processo.ns75:listDocs;
WHILE LASTMOVE(InListDocsRef) DO
DECLARE EnvListDocsRef REFERENCE TO Environment;
CREATE LASTCHILD OF Environment.Variables.XMLMessage.return.process AS EnvListDocsRef NAME 'listDocs';
SET EnvListDocsRef.description = InListDocsRef.ns75:description;
SET EnvListDocsRef.tipoDocumento = InListDocsRef.ns75:DocType;
SET EnvListDocsRef.listTypes.attribute = InListDocsRef.ns75:listTypes.ns75:atribbute;
SET EnvListDocsRef.listTypes.lenght = InListDocsRef.ns75:listTypes.ns75:lenght;
SET EnvListDocsRef.listTypes.description = InListDocsRef.ns75:listTypes.ns75:description;
SET EnvListDocsRef.listTypes.nature = InListDocsRef.ns75:listTypes.ns75:nature;
SET EnvListDocsRef.listTypes.required = InListDocsRef.ns75:listTypes.ns75:required;
MOVE InListDocsRef NEXTSIBLING REPEAT NAME;
END WHILE;
The code above only walks over 4 + 10,000 Nodes i.e. 10 thousand Nodes vs 50 million Nodes.
A couple of other useful things to know about setting references are:
To point to the last element you can use a subscript of [<]. So to point to the last ListItem in the aggregate MyList you would code Environment.MyList.ListItem[<]
You can use an asterisk * to set a reference to an element in the tree that you don't know the name of e.g. Environment.MyAggregate.* points to the first child of MyAggregate regardless of it's name.
You can also use asterisks * to choose an element irregardless of it's namespace InListDocsRef.*:listTypes.*:description
For anonymous namespaced elements use *:* but be very careful * and *:* are not the same thing the first means no namespace any element and the second means any namespace any element.
To process lists in reverse combine the [<] subscript with the PREVIOUSSIBLING option of MOVE.
So a chunk of code for reversing a list might go something like:
DECLARE MyReverseListItemWalkingRef REFERENCE TO Environment.MyList.ListItem[<];
WHILE LASTMOVE(MyReverseListItemWalkingRef) DO
CREATE LASTCHILD OF OuputRoot.ReversedList.Item NAME 'Description' VALUE MyReverseListItemWalkingRef.Desc;
MOVE MyReverseListItemWalkingRef PREVIOUSSIBLING REPEAT NAME;
END WHILE;
Learn how to use REFERENCES they are extremely powerful and one of your simplest options when it comes to performance.
I am working with a third party device which has some implementation of Lua, and communicates in BACnet. The documentation is pretty janky, not providing any sort of help for any more advanced programming ideas. It's simply, "This is how you set variables...". So, I am trying to just figure it out, and hoping you all can help.
I need to set a long list of variables to certain values. I have a userdata 'ME', with a bunch of variables named MVXX (e.g. - MV21, MV98, MV56, etc).
(This is all kind of background for BACnet.) Variables in BACnet all have 17 'priorities', i.e., every BACnet variable is actually a sort of list of 17 values, with priority 16 being the default. So, typically, if I were to say ME.MV12 = 23, that would set MV12's priority-16 to the desired value of 23.
However, I need to set priority 17. I can do this in the provided Lua implementation, by saying ME.MV12_PV[17] = 23. I can set any of the priorities I want by indexing that PV. (Corollaries - what is PV? What is the underscore? How do I get to these objects? Or are they just interpreted from Lua to some function in C on the backend?)
All this being said, I need to make that variable name dynamic, so that i can set whichever value I need to set, based on some other code. I have made several attempts.
This tells me the object(MV12_PV[17]) does not exist:
x = 12
ME["MV" .. x .. "_PV[17]"] = 23
But this works fine, setting priority 16 to 23:
x = 12
ME["MV" .. x] = 23
I was trying to attempt some sort of what I think is called an evaluation, or eval. But, this just prints out function followed by some random 8 digit number:
x = 12
test = assert(loadstring("MV" .. x .. "_PV[17] = 23"))
print(test)
Any help? Apologies if I am unclear - tbh, I am so far behind the 8-ball I am pretty much grabbing at straws.
Underscores can be part of Lua identifiers (variable and function names). They are just part of the variable name (like letters are) and aren't a special Lua operator like [ and ] are.
In the expression ME.MV12_PV[17] we have ME being an object with a bunch of fields, ME.MV12_PV being an array stored in the "MV12_PV" field of that object and ME.MV12_PV[17] is the 17th slot in that array.
If you want to access fields dynamically, the thing to know is that accessing a field with dot notation in Lua is equivalent to using bracket notation and passing in the field name as a string:
-- The following are all equivalent:
x.foo
x["foo"]
local fieldname = "foo"
x[fieldname]
So in your case you might want to try doing something like this:
local n = 12
ME["MV"..n.."_PV"][17] = 23
BACnet "Commmandable" Objects (e.g. Binary Output, Analog Output, and o[tionally Binary Value, Analog Value and a handful of others) actually have 16 priorities (1-16). The "17th" you are referring to may be the "Relinquish Default", a value that is used if all 16 priorities are set to NULL or "Relinquished".
Perhaps your system will allow you to write to a BACnet Property called "Relinquish Default".
I've noticed that strings, numbers, bool and nil data seem to be straight forward to work with. But when it comes to functions, tables, etc. you get a reference instead of the actual object.
Is there a name for this phenomenon? Is there terminology that describes the distinction between the way these 2 sets of types are handled?
a = "hi"
b = 1
c = true
d = nil
e = {"joe", "mike"}
f = function () end
g = coroutine.create(function () print("hi") end)
print(a) --> hi
print(b) --> 1
print(c) --> true
print(d) --> nil
print(e) --> table: 0x103350
print(f) --> function: 0x1035a0
print(g) --> thread: 0x103d30
What you're seeing here is an attempt by the compiler to return a string representation of the object. For simple object types the __tostring implementation is provided already, but for other more complex types there is no intuitive way of returning a string representation.
See Lua: give custom userdata a tostring method for more information which might help!
.Net (Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual C++ and C#) would describe them as value types and reference types, where reference types refer to a value by reference and value types hold the actual values.
I don't think lua puts too much thought into it given that it's supposed to be a simpler interpreted language and ultimately it doesn't matter as much because lua is a fairly weakly typed language (ie it doesn't enforce type safety beyond throwing an error when you try to use operations on types they can't be used on).
Either way, most programmers in my experience understand them as 'value types' and 'reference types', so I'd say they're the two terms it's best to stick with.
In Lua, numbers are values, everything else is accessible by reference only. But the different behavior on print is just because there's no way to actually print functions (and while tables could have a default behavior for print, they don't - possibly because they're allowed to have cyclic references).
What you are seeing is the behavior of the print function. It will its arguments by using tostring on them. print could be implemented by using io.write like this (simplified a bit):
function print(...)
local args = {n = select('#',...), ...}
for i=1,args.n do
io.write(tostring(args[i]), '\t')
end
io.write('\n')
end
You should notice the call to tostring. By default it returns the representation of numbers, booleans and strings. Since there is no sane default way to convert other types to a string, it only displays the type and a useless internal pointer to the object (so that you can differentiate instances). You can view the source here.
You will be surprised, but there is no value/reference distinction in Lua. :-)
Please read here and here.
Here's my code, I confuse the local variable 'count' in the return function(c1,c2) with memory strack and where does they store in?
function make_counter()
local count = 0
return function()
count = count + 1
return count
end
end
c1 = make_counter()
c2 = make_counter()
print(c1())--print->1
print(c1())--print->2
print(c1())--print->3
print(c2())--print->1
print(c2())--print->2
in the return function(c1,c2) with memory strack and where does they store in?
It's stored in the closure!
c1 is not a closure, it is the function returned by make_counter(). The closure is not explicitly declared anywhere. It is the combination of the function returned by make_counter() and the "free variables" of that function. See closures # Wikipedia, specifically the implementation:
Closures are typically implemented with a special data structure that contains a pointer to the function code, plus a representation of the function's lexical environment (e.g., the set of available variables and their values) at the time when the closure was created.
I'm not quite sure what you're asking exactly, but I'll try to explain how closures work.
When you do this in Lua:
function() <some Lua code> end
You are creating a value. Values are things like the number 1, the string "string", and so forth.
Values are immutable. For example, the number 1 is always the number 1. It can never be the number two. You can add 1 to 2, but that will give you a new number 3. The same goes for strings. The string "string" is a string and will always be that particular string. You can use Lua functions to take away all 'g' characters in the string, but this will create a new string "strin".
Functions are values, just like the number 1 and the string "string". Values can be stored in variables. You can store the number 1 in multiple variables. You can store the string "string" in multiple variables. And the same goes for all other kinds of values, including functions.
Functions are values, and therefore they are immutable. However, functions can contain values; these values are not immutable. It's much like tables.
The {} syntax creates a Lua table, which is a value. This table is different from every other table, even other empty tables. However, you can put different stuff in tables. This doesn't change the unique value of the table, but it does change what is stored within that table. Each time you execute {}, you get a new, unique table. So if you have the following function:
function CreateTable()
return {}
end
The following will be true:
tableA = CreateTable()
tableB = CreateTable()
if(tableA == tableB) then
print("You will never see this")
else
print("Always printed")
end
Even though both tableA and tableB are empty tables (contain the same thing), they are different tables. They may contain the same stuff, but they are different values.
The same goes for functions. Functions in Lua are often called "closures", particularly if the function has contents. Functions are given contents based on how they use variables. If a function references a local variable that is in scope at the location where that function is created (remember: the syntax function() end creates a function every time you call it), then the function will contain a reference to that local variable.
But local variables go out of scope, while the value of the function may live on (in your case, you return it). Therefore, the function's object, the closure, must contain a reference to that local variable that will cause it to continue existing until the closure itself is discarded.
Where do the values get stored? It doesn't matter; only the closure can access them (though there is a way through the C Lua API, or through the Lua Debug API). So unlike tables, where you can get at anything you want, closures can truly hide data.
Lua Closures can also be used to implement prototype-based classes and objects. Closure classes and objects behave slightly differently than normal Lua classes and their method of invocation is somewhat different:
-- closure class definition
StarShip = {}
function StarShip.new(x,y,z)
self = {}
local dx, dy, dz
local curx, cury, curz
local engine_warpnew
cur_x = x; cur_y = y; cur_z = z
function setDest(x,y,z)
dx = x; dy=y; dz=z;
end
function setSpeed(warp)
engine_warpnew = warp
end
function self.warp(x,y,z,speed)
print("warping to ",x,y,x," at warp ",speed)
setDest(x,y,z)
setSpeed(speed)
end
function self.currlocation()
return {x=cur_x, y=cur_y, z=cur_z}
end
return self
end
enterprise = StarShip.new(1,3,9)
enterprise.warp(0,0,0,10)
loc = enterprise.currlocation()
print(loc.x, loc.y, loc.z)
Produces the following output:
warping to 0 0 0 at warp 10
1 3 9
Here we define a prototype object "StarShip" as an empty table.
Then we create a constructor for the StarShip in the "new" method. The first thing it does is create a closure table called self that contains the object's methods. All methods in the closure (those defined as 'function self.') are "closed" or defined for all values accessible by the constructor. This is why it's called a closure. When the constructor is done it returns the closure object "return self".
A lot more information on closure-based objects is available here:
http://lua-users.org/wiki/ObjectOrientationClosureApproach