Lua unusual variable name (question mark variable) - lua

Question

I have stumbled upon this line of code and I am not sure what the [ ? ] part represents (my guess is it's a sort of a wildcard but I searched it for a while and couldn't find anything):
['?'] = function() return is_canadian and "eh" or "" end
I understand that RHS is a functional ternary operator. I am curious about the LHS and what it actually is.
Edit: reference (2nd example):
http://lua-users.org/wiki/SwitchStatement

Answer 1

Actually, it is quite simple.
local t = {
a = "aah",
b = "bee",
c = "see",
It maps each letter to a sound pronunciation. Here, a need to be pronounced aah and b need to be pronounced bee and so on. Some letters have a different pronunciation if in american english or canadian english. So not every letter can be mapped to a single sound.
z = function() return is_canadian and "zed" or "zee" end,
['?'] = function() return is_canadian and "eh" or "" end
In the mapping, the letter z and the letter ? have a different prononciation in american english or canadian english. When the program will try to get the prononciation of '?', it will calls a function to check whether the user want to use canadian english or another english and the function will returns either zed or zee.
Finally, the 2 following notations have the same meaning:
local t1 = {
a = "aah",
b = "bee",
["?"] = "bee"
}
local t2 = {
["a"] = "aah",
["b"] = "bee",
["?"] = "bee"
}

Answer 2

If you look closely at the code linked in the question, you'll see that this line is part of a table constructor (the part inside {}). It is not a full statement on its own. As mentioned in the comments, it would be a syntax error outside of a table constructor. ['?'] is simply a string key.

Answer 3

The other posts alreay explained what that code does, so let me explain why it needs to be written that way.
['?'] = function() return is_canadian and "eh" or "" end is embedded in {}
It is part of a table constructor and assigns a function value to the string key '?'
local tbl = {a = 1} is syntactic sugar for local tbl = {['a'] = 1} or
local tbl = {}
tbl['a'] = 1
String keys that allow that convenient syntax must follow Lua's lexical conventions and hence may only contain letters, digits and underscore. They must not start with a digit.
So local a = {? = 1} is not possible. It will cause a syntax error unexpected symbol near '?' Therefor you have to explicitly provide a string value in square brackets as in local a = {['?'] = 1}
they gave each table element its own line
local a = {
1,
2,
3
}
This greatly improves readability for long table elements or very long tables and allows you maintain a maximum line length.
You'll agree that
local tbl = {
z = function() return is_canadian and "zed" or "zee" end,
['?'] = function() return is_canadian and "eh" or "" end
}
looks a lot cleaner than
local tbl = {z = function() return is_canadian and "zed" or "zee" end,['?'] = function() return is_canadian and "eh" or "" end}