Trying to compare all entries of one table in Lua - lua

Question

Basically I have a table of objects, each of these objects has one particular field that is a number. I'm trying to see if any of these numerical entries match up and I can't think of a way to do it. I thought possibly a double for loop, one loop iterating through the table, the other decrementing, but won't this at some point lead to two values being compared twice? I'm worried that it may appear to work on the surface but actually have subtle errors. This is how I pictured the code:
for i = #table, 1, -1 do
for j = 1, #table do
if( table[i].n == table[j].n ) then
table.insert(table2, table[i])
table.insert(table2, table[j])
end
end
end
I want to insert the selected objects, as tables, into another pre made one without any duplicates.

Answer 1

Let the outer loop run over the table, and let the inner loop always start one element ahead of the outer one - this avoids double counting and comparing objects with themselves. Also, if you call the table you want to examine table that will probably hide the table library in which you want to access insert. So let's say you call your input table t:
for i = 1, #t do
for j = i+1, #t do
if( t[i].n == t[j].n ) then
table.insert(table2, t[i])
table.insert(table2, t[j])
end
end
end
Still, if three or more elements have the same value n you will add some of them multiple times. You could use another table to remember which elements you've already inserted:
local done = {}
for i = 1, #t do
for j = i+1, #t do
if( t[i].n == t[j].n ) then
if not done[i] then
table.insert(table2, t[i])
done[i] = true
end
if not done[j] then
table.insert(table2, t[j])
done[j] = true
end
end
end
end
I admit this isn't really elegant, but it's getting late over here, and my brain refuses to think of a neater approach.
EDIT: In fact... using another table, you can reduce this to a single loop. When you encounter a new n you add a new value at n as the key into your helper table - the value will be that t[i] you were just analysing. If you encounter an n that already is in the table, you take that saved element and the current one and add them both to your target list - you also replace the element in the auxiliary table with true or something that's not a table:
local temp = {}
for i = 1, #t do
local n = t[i].n
if not temp[n] then
temp[n] = t[i]
else
if type(temp[n]) == "table" then
table.insert(table2, temp[n])
temp[n] = true
end
table.insert(table2, t[i])
end
end