Element by Element comparison in Lua - lua

Question

I'm trying to find a way to do element-by-element comparison in Lua using the standard < operator. For example, here's what I'd like to do:
a = {5, 7, 10}
b = {6, 4, 15}
c = a < b -- should return {true, false, true}
I already have code working for addition (and subtraction, multiplication, etc). My issue is that Lua forces the result of a comparison to a boolean. I don't want a boolean, I want a table as the result of the comparison.
Here is my code so far, with addition working, but less-than comparison not working:
m = {}
m['__add'] = function (a, b)
-- Add two tables together
-- Works fine
c = {}
for i = 1, #a do
c[i] = a[i] + b[i]
end
return c
end
m['__lt'] = function (a, b)
-- Should do a less-than operator on each element
-- Doesn't work, Lua forces result to boolean
c = {}
for i = 1, #a do
c[i] = a[i] < b[i]
end
return c
end
a = {5, 7, 10}
b = {6, 4, 15}
setmetatable(a, m)
c = a + b -- Expecting {11, 11, 25}
print(c[1], c[2], c[3]) -- Works great!
c = a < b -- Expecting {true, false, true}
print(c[1], c[2], c[3]) -- Error, lua makes c into boolean
The Lua programming manual says that the result of the __lt metamethod call is always converted to a boolean. My question is, how can I work around that? I heard that Lua is good for DSL, and I really need the syntax to work here. I think it should be possible using MetaLua, but I'm not really sure where to start.
A coworker suggested that I just use << instead with the __shl metamethod. I tried it and it works, but I really want to use < for less than, rather than a hack using the wrong symbol.
Thanks!

Answer 1

You only have two choices to make this work with your syntax:
Option 1: Patch the Lua core.
This is probably going to be very difficult, and it'll be a maintenance nightmare in the future. The biggest issue is that Lua assumes on a very low level that the comparison operators <, >, ==, ~= return a bool value.
The byte-code that Lua generates actually does a jump on any comparison. For example, something like c = 4 < 5 gets compiled to byte-code that looks much more like if (4 < 5) then c = true else c = false end.
You can see what the byte-code looks like with luac -l file.lua. If you compare the byte-code of c=4<5 with c=4+5 you'll see what I mean. The addition code is shorter and simpler. Lua assumes you'll do branching with comparisons, not assignment.
Option 2: Parse your code, change it, and run that
This is what I think you should do. It would be very hard, expect most of the work is already done for you (using something like LuaMinify).
First of all, write a function you can use for comparisons of anything. The idea here is to do your special comparison if it's a table, but fall back on using < for everything else.
my_less = function(a, b)
if (type(a) == 'table') then
c = {}
for i = 1, #a do
c[i] = a[i] < b[i]
end
return c
else
return a < b
end
end
Now all we need to do is replace every less than operator a<b with my_less(a,b).
Let's use the parser from LuaMinify. We'll call it with the following code:
local parse = require('ParseLua').ParseLua
local ident = require('FormatIdentity')
local code = "c=a*b<c+d"
local ret, ast = parse(code)
local _, f = ident(ast)
print(f)
All this will do is parse the code into a syntax tree, and then spit it back out again. We'll change FormatIdentity.lua to make it do the substitution. Replace the section near line 138 with the following code:
elseif expr.AstType == 'BinopExpr' then --line 138
if (expr.Op == '<') then
tok_it = tok_it + 1
out:appendStr('my_less(')
formatExpr(expr.Lhs)
out:appendStr(',')
formatExpr(expr.Rhs)
out:appendStr(')')
else
formatExpr(expr.Lhs)
appendStr( expr.Op )
formatExpr(expr.Rhs)
end
That's all there is to it. It will replace something like c=a*b<c+d with my_less(a*b,c+d). Just shove all your code through at runtime.

Answer 2

Comparisons in Lua return a boolean value.
There is nothing you can do about it short of changing the core of Lua.

Answer 3

Can you put up with a bit verbose v()-notation:
v(a < b) instead of a < b ?
local vec_mt = {}
local operations = {
copy = function (a, b) return a end,
lt = function (a, b) return a < b end,
add = function (a, b) return a + b end,
tostring = tostring,
}
local function create_vector_instance(operand1, operation, operand2)
local func, vec = operations[operation], {}
for k, elem1 in ipairs(operand1) do
local elem2 = operand2 and operand2[k]
vec[k] = func(elem1, elem2)
end
return setmetatable(vec, vec_mt)
end
local saved_result
function v(...) -- constructor for class "vector"
local result = ...
local tp = type(result)
if tp == 'boolean' and saved_result then
result, saved_result = saved_result
elseif tp ~= 'table' then
result = create_vector_instance({...}, 'copy')
end
return result
end
function vec_mt.__add(v1, v2)
return create_vector_instance(v1, 'add', v2)
end
function vec_mt.__lt(v1, v2)
saved_result = create_vector_instance(v1, 'lt', v2)
end
function vec_mt.__tostring(vec)
return
'Vector ('
..table.concat(create_vector_instance(vec, 'tostring'), ', ')
..')'
end
Usage:
a = v(5, 7, 10); print(a)
b = v(6, 4, 15); print(b)
c = a + b ; print(c) -- result is v(11, 11, 25)
c = v(a + b); print(c) -- result is v(11, 11, 25)
c = v(a < b); print(c) -- result is v(true, false, true)

Answer 4

As others have already mentioned, there is no straight-forward solution to this. However, with the use of a generic Python-like zip() function, such as the one shown below, you can simplify the problem, like so:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Python-like zip() iterator
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
function zip(...)
local arrays, ans = {...}, {}
local index = 0
return
function()
index = index + 1
for i,t in ipairs(arrays) do
if type(t) == 'function' then ans[i] = t() else ans[i] = t[index] end
if ans[i] == nil then return end
end
return table.unpack(ans)
end
end
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a = {5, 7, 10}
b = {6, 4, 15}
c = {}
for a,b in zip(a,b) do
c[#c+1] = a < b -- should return {true, false, true}
end
-- display answer
for _,v in ipairs(c) do print(v) end