I'm working on a game where a bunch of characters will be generated on the fly, based on some constraints defined either in the project or externally via mod files. I am using MoonSharp Lua (5.2) interpreter for interfacing with my C# code, and Lua tables to store the constraint presets. As an example:
require "Defaults"
AgePresets = {}
-- Single value
AgePresets.Newborn = 0
-- Simple ranges
AgePresets.Default = defaultAgeRange --referring to the Defaults require
AgePresets.Child = {1, 12}
AgePresets.Teenager = {13, 19}
AgePresets.YoungAdult = {20, 29}
AgePresets.Adult = {30, 40}
AgePresets.MiddleAge = {40, 60}
AgePresets.Senior = {61, 80}
AgePresets.Elder = {81, 99}
AgePresets.Methuselah = {100, 150}
AgePresets.Methuselah2 = {150, 200}
-- Weighted ranges // again referring to previously defined elements to keep things concise
AgePresets.Tween = {
{weight = 1, minmax = AgePresets.Teenager },
{weight = 1, minmax = AgePresets.YoungAdult }
}
This works fine, but from an end-user point of view, there's a lot of unnecessary typing involved. We are clearly working on AgePresets here but it is still mentioned as a prefix before every member name.
I could of course define AgePresets as an array, like AgePresets = { Child = {}, Teenager = {} } but the problem with that is then I cannot refer to previously defined elements in the array.
This doesn't work:
AgePresets = {
Child = {1,12},
RefToChild = Child, //attempt to index a nil value exception
Teen = {13,19}
}
What I ideally want to achieve is a clean, concise way for users to enter this data in, like in the first example but without having to put AgePresets. prefix before everything. How do I go about declaring a scope in a file such that all succeeding members defined in the file will be within that scope, while maintaining the ability to refer to other members defined previously in the scope?
AgePresets = setmetatable({}, {__index = _G})
do
local _ENV = AgePresets
Newborn = 0
Child = {1,12}
RefToChild = Child -- this ref is Ok
Teen = {13,19}
YoungAdult = {20,29}
Tween = {
{weight = 1, minmax = Teen },
{weight = 1, minmax = YoungAdult }
}
rnd = math.random(10) -- global functions are available here
end
setmetatable(AgePresets, nil)
You can mix the two styles: table constructor for fields that don't need to reference variables that aren't in scope yet, followed by assignment statements for the rest.
I would do that unless the order of the fields in the code significantly enhanced comprehension.
Related
How do I get the full path to the required value in the table? I want to track changes in another table through a proxy table.
I understand that I need to use metatables and __index in it. But I haven't been able to come up with a tracker yet.
Sample table structure:
Objects = {
Panel = { layer = 1, x = 600, y = 328, w = 331, h = 491;
objects = {
label = { layer = 1, x = 0, y = 0, text = 'header' };
Window = { layer = 2, x = 400, y = 100, w = 100, h = 100;
objects = {
label = { layer = 1, x = 0, y = 0, text = 'lorem ipsum dorem' };
};
};
};
};
};
Path: Objects.Panel.objects.Window.objects.label.text
I tried to create a metatable for each of the tables and collect the result of each call to __index into a table in order to roughly understand which key and value were retrieved or changed in order to synchronize these values with other tables.
This will prove itself to be horrendously slow and memory inefficient. Anyway, you were right on the track: proxy and handle __index and __newindex metamethods to your liking. This being said you also need to track the state of the proxy somehow.
You can try to hide it with some closures and upvalues but the easy way is to store the information directly in the proxy tables:
function make_tracker (o, name)
local mt = {}
mt.__index = function (proxy, key)
local path = {unpack(rawget(proxy, "__path"))} -- Stupid shallow copy
local object = rawget(proxy, "__to")
table.insert(path, key)
if type(object[key]) == "table" then
return setmetatable({__to = object[key], __path = path}, mt)
else
return table.concat(path, ".") .. " = " .. tostring(object[key])
end
end
return setmetatable({__to = o, __path = {name}}, mt)
end
__to fields indicates what proxy should point to and __path is there to cover fields we have trespassed so far. It does a shallow copy, so that one can use subproxies with local variables. name parameter is there to initialize the name of the first table, as you just simply can't know that. You use it like this:
local tObjects = make_tracker(Objects, "Objects")
local subproxy = tObjects.Panel.objects.Window
print(subproxy.objects.label.text)
print(tObjects.Panel.objects.label.text)
print(subproxy.x)
-- prints:
-- Objects.Panel.objects.Window.objects.label.text = lorem ipsum dorem
-- Objects.Panel.objects.label.text = header
-- Objects.Panel.objects.Window.x = 400
Of course, I doubt that appending the path to the original value is what you want. Modify insides of else block:
return table.concat(path, ".") .. " = " .. tostring(object[key])
according to your needs, e.g:
register_tracked_path(table.concat(path, "."))
return object[key]
If you want to handle modification of values you need to extend the metatable with similar __newindex.
I have a nested table of global variables in my lua file like
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES =
{
CLASS =
{
WARRIOR =
{
ATTACK = 0,
DEFEND = 0,
CRIT_CHANCE = 0,
CRIT_DAMAGE = 0
},
PALADIN =
{
ATTACK = 0,
DEFEND = 0,
CRIT_CHANCE = 0,
CRIT_DAMAGE = 0
},
PRIEST =
{
ATTACK = 0,
DEFEND = 0,
CRIT_CHANCE = 0,
CRIT_DAMAGE = 0
},
...
...
I want to traverse table to return all variable names in strings like "GLOBAL.CLASS.PRIEST.ATTACK", "GLOBAL.CLASS.PRIEST.DEFENSE", and so on. I already can traverse whole table but It returns values solely as "ATTACK", "DEFENSE" and such...
How can I get full "address" of each value?
More efficient and easier way is to use table.concat. For example, to show all fields:
local myprint
myprint = function(tab, prefixtab) -- Tab = tab to print, prefix = inital tab ({'GLOBAL'} in your case) or nil
prefixtab = prefixtab or {}
local idx = #prefixtab+1
for k,v in pairs(tab) do
prefixtab[idx] = k
print(table.concat(prefixtab, '.')) -- Comment to don't print for every path
if type(v) == 'table' then
myprint(v, prefixtab)
--else -- To print only complete pathes
--print(table.concat(prefixtab, '.'))
end
end
prefixtab[idx] = nil
end
Example (based on your table):
> myprint(GLOBAL, {'GLOBAL'})
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.CRIT_DAMAGE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.ATTACK
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.CRIT_CHANCE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.DEFEND
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.CRIT_DAMAGE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.ATTACK
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.CRIT_CHANCE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.DEFEND
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.CRIT_DAMAGE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.ATTACK
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.CRIT_CHANCE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.DEFEND
Or complete-only path version:
> myprint(GLOBAL, {'GLOBAL'})
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.CRIT_CHANCE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.ATTACK
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.CRIT_DAMAGE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PRIEST.DEFEND
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.CRIT_CHANCE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.ATTACK
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.CRIT_DAMAGE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.WARRIOR.DEFEND
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.CRIT_CHANCE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.ATTACK
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.CRIT_DAMAGE
GLOBAL.ADVANTAGES.CLASS.PALADIN.DEFEND
Assuming you are doing a depth-first traversal (aka in-order), as you descend the hierarchy, pass down the path for the parent node. At the point where you capture the leaf's name, prepend it with the parent node's path. If the node is not a leaf, prepend the node's name with the parent node's path and pass it down.
local node = path .. "." .. tostring(key) -- tostring used in case key is not a string
Use "GLOBAL" as the initial path.
Ok, so I'm trying to follow the instructions found here: https://www.lua.org/pil/16.1.html to do something resembling OO programming in Lua (and the LOVE game framework), but it's not working. Here's the core of my code. I have a generic Object class:
local Object = {}
function Object:load(arg)
end
function Object:update(dt)
end
function Object:draw()
end
function Object:new(arg)
o = {}
setmetatable(o, self)
self.__index = self
o:load(arg)
return o
end
return Object
and a Ship class that inherits from it:
Object = require('objects.object')
local Ship = Object:new()
Ship.sprite = love.graphics.newImage('assets/sprites/ship.png')
Ship.sprite:setFilter('nearest', 'nearest', 0)
Ship.px = Ship.sprite:getWidth()/2
Ship.py = Ship.sprite:getHeight()/2
function Ship:load(arg)
self.x = arg.x or 0
self.y = arg.y or 0
self.sx = arg.sx or arg.s or 1
self.sy = arg.sy or arg.s or 1
self.rot = arg.rot or 0
self.tint = arg.tint or {255, 255, 255}
end
function Ship:draw()
love.graphics.setColor(self.tint)
love.graphics.draw(self.sprite, self.x, self.y, self.rot,
self.sx, self.sy, self.px, self.py)
love.graphics.setColor({255, 255, 255})
end
return Ship
Now the problem is, I create two of these Ships as members of another object with this code:
self.ship1 = Ship:new({x=50, y=self.y1, s=2, tint={0, 0.5, 1}})
self.ship2 = Ship:new({x=750, y=self.y2, s=-2, tint={1, 0.5, 0}})
But when I draw them, I only see one - the second. As it turns out, it's like the code above doesn't assign the new instances of Ship to ship1 and ship2, but directly to self, for reasons that I can't understand. Did I do something wrong or is this a weird bug of the interpreter?
It is not bug of the interpreter, it is designed behavior of the language. o={} creates global variable, which is not expected by the programmer here. "Why it is so?" is a frequent question to the language creator. There are many efforts to take control over that behavior simpler .
o = {} without local creates global variable global variable is accessible and shared between all the functions in the program, unless you use fancy environment scoping techniques. Using global variable inside a function opens up doors for various side effects, you should be careful with side effects.
I've removed some of the syntactic sugar and added code above can be equivalently written as follows:
Object.new = function(table_before_colon,arg)
highlander = {} --global variable, there can be only one
setmetatable(highlander,table_before_colon);
table_before_colon.__index = table_before_colon;
highlander:load(arg) -- table_before_colon.__index.load(highlander,arg)
return highlander
end
local Ship = Object:new()
--global highlander == Ship
--Ship.new points to Object.new
function Ship:load(arg)--equivalent to: Ship.load=function(self,arg)
--code that sets fields of the `self` object and is called from within new
self.x = arg.x or 0 -- equivalently highlander.x=arg.x or 0
end
Now, the presence of the global variable would not matter, if nothing happened to it in the period from the start of the new till the new returns. But, apparently, your other code is similar to this:
local OtherObject = Object:new()
--otherObject == highlander
OtherObject.load = function(new_other_obj,arg)
--highlander == new_other_obj
new_other_obj.ship1 = Ship:new({x=50, y=self.y1, s=2, tint={0, 0.5, 1}})
--highlander == new_other_obj.ship1
new_other_obj.ship2 = Ship:new({x=750, y=self.y2, s=-2, tint={1, 0.5, 0}})
--highlander == new_other_obj.ship2
end
So, OtherObject.load calls other functions, and those functions also access and modify the same global variable.
local some_object = OtherObject:new()
returns the global variable as it is at the end of the call, which is last set to the ship2 inside the call to Ship:new inside the call to OtherObject.load inside call to OtherObject:new.
Solved! Apparently, what was needed was this little snippet:
function Object:new(arg)
local o = {}
setmetatable(o, self)
self.__index = self
o:load(arg)
return o
end
Making o local in all my new methods solved everything. I don't know how it worked exactly but I assume having it in the global variable space broke something when the meta tables are set.
I'd like to re-initialize a table without losing references to it.
What I want to achieve is defining tables in files, and when a file is changed (with a text editor) the file is reloaded, changing the table. Of course this doesn't change the table but creates a new instance, old references will still point to the old table.
Any suggestions?
EDIT: I want to elaborate on what I want to achieve. An example with game characters and weapons. I want to modify the weapons.lua and so affect the characters.
-- weapons.lua
sword = { damage = 3 }
-- characters.lua
character = { weapon = sword }
Adding a level of indirection (putting "sword" inside "weapons") like suggested by JWT doesn't help, unless I split character into { weaponTable = weapons, weaponKey = "sword" } but I don't see this as an option.
Anchor everything that needs to survive in the global environment. Nesting is fine, and this doesn't have to be your primary reference. (You can still local things, but make sure to initialize those local variables from the global environment and update the global if you change the local.)
To initialize the global values, say
foo = foo or value -- if foo is always true-ish
bar = (bar == nil) and value or bar -- if bar may be `false`
To initialize or update tables, you can
foo = foo or { }
foo.bar = foo.bar or 23
foo.baz = foo.baz or 42
-- and so on...
but that's kinda icky, so maybe say
function reinit( new, old ) -- (re)initialize one level, prefer old
if old == nil then return new end
if type( old ) ~= "table" then return old end
for k, v in pairs( new ) do
if old[k] == nil then old[k] = v end
end
return old
end
function reset( new, old ) -- (re)initialize one level, prefer new
if old == nil then return new end
if type( old ) ~= "table" then return new end
for k, v in pairs( new ) do old[k] = v end
return old
end
and then just
foo = reinit( { bar = 23, baz = 42 }, foo ) -- only setting if not defined
-- or
foo = reset( { bar = 23, baz = 42 }, foo ) -- always overriding given fields
or maybe make it even more fancy and say
function traverse( t, path )
local here, last, lastk, created = t
-- follow path of several keys starting from t, creating tables as needed
for k in path:gmatch "[^.]+" do
k = tonumber( k ) or k -- convert all-number keys to integer (for arrays)
local next = here[k]
if not next then
next, created = { }, true
here[k] = next
else
created = false
end
lastk, last, here = k, here, next
end
return here, last, lastk, created
end
function repopulate( path, value, update )
update = update or reinit -- pass 'reset' as 'update' for the other behavior
-- or something entirely different if that's what you need
local here, last, lastk, created = traverse( _G, path )
if type( value ) == "table" then
update( value, here )
else
if created then last[lastk] = nil end -- created one level too much
update( { [lastk] = value }, last )
end
end
and then (with arbitrary nesting)
-- No need to create 'state' first if it doesn't exist yet!
-- (If it exists, it will get updated, otherwise it's created)
repopulate( "state.player.weapon", { kind = "sword", damage = 11 } )
-- Do keep in mind that generally update order is relevant -- you may want to
-- give a newly created player a default inventory, but you may not want to
-- "refill" the player's inventory on every reload. So generally `repopulate`
-- with the parent and all child nodes for from-scratch creation, then
-- `repopulate` the child nodes that need to be checked & potentially updated
-- as well.
-- (So here you'd probably repopulate `state.player` first and then
-- `state.player.weapon` or other fields only if they should be updated anyway.)
-- e.g.:
repopulate( "state.player", {
x = 0, y = 0, hp = 100, mp = 100, level = 0, -- and so on
weapon = { kind = "sword", damage = 11 }, -- etc. etc.
} )
-- on reload always force a sword-kind weapon, leave rest (damage, ...) as-is
repopulate( "state.player.weapon", { kind = "sword" }, reset )
-- or alternatively: only if player has no weapon, give them a sword
repopulate( "state.player.weapon", { kind = "sword", damage = 3 } )
And you can go further, add metamethods to hide some of that shuffling, define different update policies, ... – you've seen some of the possibilities, now go and build your own version that fits your style and your code.
(While you're free to use the above code in any way, please note that it was written ad-hoc in the browser. I did some testing, fixed some glitches, and it seems to work now, but don't be surprised if there's still one or two bugs hiding in there. So play with this, change it, break it (and see how/why it breaks), adapt and extend it, ... – but unless you completely understand what it does and can fix any bugs, I strongly suggest you write your own version, or just stick to the basics. You probably don't need everything that this does, and you're likely to need other things that this doesn't do. As this is a central part of the reloading/live-coding infrastructure and everything has to be adapted to be reload-compatible, any mismatch between your tooling and what you actually need will result in a lot of pain everywhere in your code. So if you need something like this, put in a day or two to make it work the way you need it to, or you will regret it.)
(Free bonus warning: If you do OOP, you'll probably have to store and retrieve your classes instead of creating them every time, otherwise old objects from previous iterations will miss code updates and still run their old methods. I've forgotten about that more than just a couple of times and wasted several hours pondering "why isn't it fixed now?!?" after repeatedly re-loading code... So remember to anchor your metatables, anchor your classes!)
You could nest the tables in another table.
Before:
local a = { 1, 2, 3 }
local b = { 7, 8, 9 }
print(a[2] + b[2]) -- #=> 10
After:
local lookup = {
a = { 1, 2, 3 },
b = { 7, 8, 9 }
}
print(lookup.a[2] + lookup.b[2]) -- #=> 10
Then you can fully replace (or just update) a table in the lookup table and any dependent statements will use that updated value:
lookup.a = { 100, 50, 0 }
print(lookup.a[2] + lookup.b[2]) -- #=> 58
I don't know if it's exactly what you needed (As an ID is necessary) but I hope it will fit your needs.
meta = {
tables = {},
__call = function(arg, t)
for k, v in pairs(t) do
arg[k] = v
end
end,
__bnot = function(arg)
return arg.__key
end,
__newindex = function(arg, key, val)
meta.tables[arg.__key][key] = val
end,
__index = function(arg, key)
return meta.tables[arg.__key][key]
end
}
function RefTable(arg)
local newtable = {}
if arg ~= nil then
newtable.__key = arg
setmetatable(newtable, meta)
if meta.tables[arg] == nil then
meta.tables[arg] = {}
end
else
error("RefTable can't have nil key")
end
return newtable
end
-- Using the RefTable
sword = RefTable("Sword")
sword({damage = 3})
sword.cooldown = 10
character = {sword = sword}
print("base", sword.damage, sword.cooldown)
print("embed", character.sword.damage, character.sword.cooldown)
sword = RefTable("Sword")
sword({damage = 8, cooldown = 50})
print("embed2", character.sword.damage, character.sword.cooldown)
print(sword.__key, sword.cooldown)
ref = RefTable("Sword")
ref.cooldown = 1000
print(sword.cooldown)
This is my first attempt to use Lua tables and I'm getting on with it quite well. I'm struggling with one thing though, heres (a small sample of) my table as it currently stands:
objects = {
["1/1/1"] = { tl = 1, startVal = 1, stopVal = 0 },
["1/1/2"] = { tl = 11, startVal = 1, stopVal = 0 },
["1/1/3"] = { tl = 22, startVal = 1, stopVal = 0 },
["1/1/4"] = { tl = 33, startVal = 1, stopVal = 0 },
}
The typical operation of this is that I use the "1/1/1" values as a lookup to the inner tables and then use those values in various functions. This all works well. Now, I need to go the other way, say I have tl = 22 coming in, I want to return the top value ("1/1/3" in this case).
I think I need to do something with the inpairs I keep seeing on the web but I'm struggling to implement. Any help would be massively appreciated.
You can't use ipairs because your table is an associated array not a sequence, so you have to use pairs. Also, there is no search function builtin to Lua, so you have to loop over all items yourself, looking for the right field value:
function findTL(tbl)
for key, data in pairs(tbl) do
if data.tl == tlSearch then
return key
end
end
end
local key = findTL(objects, 22)
If you want something a tad more object-oriented you could do this:
objects.findTL = findTL -- ok because first arg is the table to search
local key = objects:findTL(22)
isn't it better to take the value directly?
objects.1/1/1.tl
I don't know if it will work also with slashes, but if not, you may replace it by 'x' for example. Then it will be:
objects.1x1x1.tl