Splitting strings in Lua - lua

I'm very new to Lua, So sorry if I sound really stupid.
I'm trying to make a program that does something a bit like this:
User input: "Hello world"
Var1: Hello
Var2: world
Because I have no idea what I'm doing, All I have is test = io.read(), And I have no idea what to do next.
I appreciate any help!
Thanks, Morgan.

If you want split words, you can do so:
input = "Hello world"
-- declare a table to store the results
-- use tables instead of single variables, if you don't know how many results you'll have
t_result = {}
-- scan the input
for k in input:gmatch('(%w+)') do table.insert(t_result, k) end
-- input:gmatch('(%w+)')
-- with generic match function will the input scanned for matches by the given pattern
-- it's the same like: string.gmatch(input, '(%w+)')
-- meaning of the search pattern:
---- "%w" = word character
---- "+" = one or more times
---- "()" = capture the match and return it to the searching variable "k"
-- table.insert(t_result, k)
-- each captured occurence of search result will stored in the result table
-- output
for i=1, #t_result do print(t_result[i]) end
-- #t_result: with "#" you get the length of the table (it's not usable for each kind of tables)
-- other way:
-- for k in pairs(t_result) do print(t_result[k]) end
Output:
Hello
world

Related

Match string until a character or end

I'm trying to match and return a string between two (or one if there's no closing character, then until the string's end) character.
local id = "+#a-#s,#n";
local addOperator = string.match(id, "^[+](.+)(?[-])"); -- should return "#a"
if (addOperator) then
-- ...
end
local removeOperator = string.match(id, "^[-](.+)(?[+])"); -- should return "#s,#n"
if (removeOperator) then
-- ...
end
-- Or without the excluding operator "-"
local id = "+#a";
local addOperator = string.match(id, "^[+](.+)(?[-])"); -- should return "#a", with my pattern it returns a nil.
if (addOperator) then
-- ...
end
? should come after the char you are matching 0 to 1 of.
You also can not use .+ followed by any char ? and expect the ? to restrict the results of the .+
I suggest using an a set that excludes -. Additionally you use [+] but should be using %+, % is how you escape a special character in a pattern. Using [+] to escape is not necessarily wrong functionally it just comes off as odd or non-idiomatic in Lua.
local id = "+#a-#s,#n"
print(string.match(id, "^%+([^-]+)"))
print(string.match(id, "%-(.+)"))
id = "+#a"
print(string.match(id, "^%+([^-]+)"))
This is a good resource for understanding Lua patters: Understanding Lua Patterns

how to find the index of a repeated character in lua string

suppose you have a path like this
/home/user/dev/project
I want to get the index of any / I want
like if I want the one before dev or the one before user
I don't get lua string patterns if there is a good documentation for it please link it
There are several ways to do this. Perhaps the simplest is using the () pattern element which yields a match position combined with string.gmatch:
for index in ("/home/user/dev/project"):gmatch"()/" do
print(index)
end
which prints
1
6
11
15
as expected. Another way to go (which requires some more code) would be repeatedly invoking string.find, always passing a start index.
Assuming that you probably want to split a string by slashes, that's about as simple using string.gmatch:
for substr in ("/home/user/dev/project"):gmatch"[^/]+" do
print(substr)
end
(the pattern finds all substrings of nonzero, maximal length that don't contain a slash)
Documentation for patterns is here. You might want to have a look at the subsection "Captures".
There are many ways to do so.
Also its good to know that Lua has attached all string functions on datatype string as methods.
Thats what #LMD demonstrates with the : directly on a string.
My favorite place for experimenting with such complicated/difficult things like pattern and their captures is the Lua Standalone Console maked with: make linux-readline
So lets play with the pattern '[%/\\][%u%l%s]+'
> _VERSION
Lua 5.4
> -- Lets set up a path
> path='/home/dev/project/folder with spaces mixed with one OR MORE Capitals in should not be ignored'
> -- I am curious /home exists so trying to have a look into
> os.execute('/bin/ls -Ah ' .. ('"%s"'):format(path:match('[%/\\][%u%l%s]+')));
knoppix koyaanisqatsi
> -- OK now lets see if i can capture the last folder with the $
> io.stdout:write(('"%s"\n'):format(path:match('[%/\\][%u%l%s]+$'))):flush();
"/folder with spaces mixed with one OR MORE Capitals in should not be ignored"
> -- Works too so now i want to know whats the depth is
> do local str, count = path:gsub('[%/\\][%u%l%s%_%-]+','"%1"\n') print(str) return count end
"/home"
"/dev"
"/project"
"/folder with spaces mixed with one OR MORE Capitals in should not be ignored"
4
> -- OK seems usefull lets check a windows path with it
> path='C:\\tmp\\Some Folder'
> do local str, count = path:gsub('[%/\\][%u%l%s]+','<%1>') print(str) return count end
C:<\tmp><\Some Folder>
2
> -- And that is what i mean with "many"
> -- But aware that only lower upper and space chars are handled
> -- So _ - and other chars has to be included by the pattern
> -- Like: '[%/\\][%u%l%s%_%-]+'
> path='C:\\tmp\\Some_Folder'
> do local str, count = path:gsub('[%/\\][%u%l%s%_%-]+','<%1>') print(str) return count end
C:<\tmp><\Some_Folder>
2
> path='C:\\tmp\\Some-Folder'
> do local str, count = path:gsub('[%/\\][%u%l%s%_%-]+','<%1>') print(str) return count end
C:<\tmp><\Some-Folder>
2

Read one line (and just one line) in Lua. How?

lets suppose that i have this .txt file:
this is line one
hello world
line three
in Lua, i want to creat a string only with the content of line two something like
i want to get a specific line from this file and put into a string
io.open('file.txt', 'r')
-- reads only line two and put this into a string, like:
local line2 = "hello world"
Lua files has the same methods as io library.
That means files have read() with all options as well.
Example:
local f = io.open("file.txt") -- 'r' is unnecessary because it's a default value.
print(f:read()) -- '*l' is unnecessary because it's a default value.
f:close()
If you want some specific line you can call f:read() and do nothing with it until you begin reading required line.
But more proper solution will be f:lines() iterator:
function ReadLine(f, line)
local i = 1 -- line counter
for l in f:lines() do -- lines iterator, "l" returns the line
if i == line then return l end -- we found this line, return it
i = i + 1 -- counting lines
end
return "" -- Doesn't have that line
end

Lua: Quoted arguments passed as one in function

I'm attempting to simplify a script, and my attempts are failing. I'm making a function that will pass the given arguments and turn them into an indexed table, but I want to be able to pass quoted and non-quoted alike and have the function recognize that quoted arguments are considered one value while also respecting non-quoted arguments.
For example:
makelist dog "brown mouse" cat tiger "colorful parrot"
should return an indexed table like the following:
list_table = {"dog", "brown mouse", "cat", "tiger", "colorful parrot"}
The code I have works for quoted, but it's messing up on the non-quoted, and on top of that, adds the quoted arguments a second time. Here's what I have:
function makelist(str)
require 'tprint'
local list_table = {}
for word in string.gmatch(str, '%b""') do
table.insert(list_table, word)
end
for word in string.gmatch(str, '[^%p](%a+)[^%p]') do
table.insert(list_table, word)
end
tprint(list_table)
end
I'm not understanding why the omission of quotes is being ignored, and also is chopping off the first letter. That is, this is the output I receive from tprint (a function that prints a table out, not relevant to the code):
makelist('dog "brown mouse" cat tiger "colorful parrot"')
1=""brown mouse""
2=""colorful parrot""
3="og"
4="rown"
5="mouse"
6="cat"
7="tiger"
8="olorful"
9="parrot"
As you can see, 'd', 'b', and 'c' are missing. What fixes do I need to make so that I can get the following output instead?
1="brown mouse"
2="colorful parrot"
3="dog"
4="cat"
5="tiger"
Or better yet, have them retain the same order they were dictated as arguments, if that's possible at all.
local function makelist(str)
local t = {}
for quoted, non_quoted in ('""'..str):gmatch'(%b"")([^"]*)' do
table.insert(t, quoted ~= '""' and quoted:sub(2,-2) or nil)
for word in non_quoted:gmatch'%S+' do
table.insert(t, word)
end
end
return t
end
It may be easier to simply split on whitespaces and concatenate those elements that are inside quotes. Something like this may work (I added few more test cases):
function makelist(str)
local params, quoted = {}, false
for sep, word in str:gmatch("(%s*)(%S+)") do
local word, oquote = word:gsub('^"', "") -- check opening quote
local word, cquote = word:gsub('"$', "") -- check closing quote
-- flip open/close quotes when inside quoted string
if quoted then -- if already quoted, then concatenate
params[#params] = params[#params]..sep..word
else -- otherwise, add a new element to the list
params[#params+1] = word
end
if quoted and word == "" then oquote, cquote = 0, oquote end
quoted = (quoted or (oquote > 0)) and not (cquote > 0)
end
return params
end
local list = makelist([[
dog "brown mouse" cat tiger " colorful parrot " "quoted"
in"quoted "terminated by space " " space started" next "unbalanced
]])
for k, v in ipairs(list) do print(k, v) end
This prints the following list for me:
1 dog
2 brown mouse
3 cat
4 tiger
5 colorful parrot
6 quoted
7 in"quoted
8 terminated by space
9 space started
10 next
11 unbalanced
First thanks for your question, got me to learn the basics of Lua!
Second, so I think you went with your solution in a bit of misdirection. Looking at the question I just said why don't you split once by the quotes (") and than choose where you want to split by space.
This is what I came up with:
function makelist(str)
local list_table = {}
i=0
in_quotes = 1
if str:sub(0,1) == '"' then
in_quotes = 0
end
for section in string.gmatch(str, '[^"]+') do
i = i + 1
if (i % 2) == in_quotes then
for word in string.gmatch(section, '[^ ]+') do
table.insert(list_table, word)
end
else
table.insert(list_table, section)
end
end
for key,value in pairs(list_table) do print(key,value) end
end
The result:
1 dog
2 brown mouse
3 cat
4 tiger
5 colorful parrot

Reverse string.find() or string.gmatch in Lua?

I have a string that contains something like this:
##### abc 'foo'
/path/to/filename:1
##### abc 'bar'
/path/to/filename:1
The string can potentially be very long (say, 50 lines) and doesn't change often.
I would like to fetch the last occurrence of text in between the single-quotes (bar in this example). This is similar to someone else's Python problem (except the answer there doesn't work for me in Lua, as seen far below).
I could parse each line, and put the results into an array, and then just take the last element of the array, but that doesn't seem elegant to me:
local text = [[
##### abc 'foo'
/path/to/filename:1
##### abc 'bar'
/path/to/filename:1
]]
local arr = {}
local pattern = "abc '([^']+)'"
for s in text:gmatch(pattern) do
table.insert(arr, s)
end
print('last:', arr[#arr])
I'm interested in using Lua string patterns to search the string from the end. The pattern I tried below starts from the beginning instead of the end:
local text = [[
##### abc 'foo'
/path/to/filename:1
##### abc 'bar'
/path/to/filename:1
]]
-- FIXME: pattern searches from beginning
local pattern = "abc '([^']+)'.*$"
local s = text:gmatch(pattern)()
assert(s == 'bar', 'expected "bar" but saw "'..s..'"')
print('last:', s)
This yields:
input:12: expected "bar" but saw "foo"
What string pattern specifies the "reverse search" I'm looking for?
You could use
local pattern = ".*abc '([^']+)'"
The .* is greedy so it chews up as much as it can before it matches (in this case, it chews up all the earlier matches and gives you the last).
Or if you really wanted, you could reverse your string and (sort of) your pattern too, but I think it's better to rely on the greedy .* :P
pattern = "'([^']+)' cba"
print(text:reverse():gmatch(pattern)()) -- rab
print(text:reverse():gmatch(pattern)():reverse()) -- bar
Another option would be to use the $ pattern anchor to anchor the pattern at the end of the string. You also don't need to use gmatch here, just match suffices (and saves you the need to call the iterator function returned by gmatch). All in all you get:
text:match"'([^']+)'$"

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