I have a lua "animation variable" which has a callback function used in an animation loop.
local av = AnimationVariable(ticker.Position.Y)
...
av:addCallback( ** animation function goes here **)
Skipping over details, this addCallback function is defined as follows in C++:
void LuaUIAnimationVariable::addCallback(luabind::object callback);
and when the animation variable is updated, the callback is executed as such (we call the function with one argument):
luabind::call_function<void>(boost::ref(callback), newValue);
My question is the following: How can I use a member function with addCallback? Assuming I have a Ticker:animate(ypos) function, using addCallback on a Ticker instance addCallBack(ticker:animate) does not compile, and addCallBack(ticker.animate) does not work. I understand that member functions in lua have an implicit "self" first parameter.
Any solution or am I forced to use a global function?
Not sure if I understand your question, but if you mean a Lua member function, you can use a closure:
av:addCallback(function(yval) ticker:animate(yval) end)
Related
I'm still ramping up in lua, and I am not quite familiar with this syntax. What is happening when you pass in a function as a parameter like below?
Comm.setRouting(function(url)
for i = 1,4 do
local portIndex = "Path"..i
if url:match(portConfig[portIndex]) ~= nil then
return Comm.slots()[1], Comm.groups()[i]
end
end
end)
The other answers are correct, but it might help you if you wrote your own function that calls another function:
function CallAFunction(func_to_call)
func_to_call()
end
You could pass a named function (an anonymous function assigned to a variable) or an anonymous function written on the fly.
function SayHello()
print("Hello!")
end
--[[
^This is equivalent to:
SayHello = function()
print("Hello!")
end
]]--
CallAFunction(SayHello)
CallAFunction(function()
print("Goodbye!")
end)
output:
Hello!
Goodbye!
and this can be done with parameters
function CallAFunction(func)
func("Bonjour")
end
CallAFunction(function(parameter)
print(parameter)
end)
Here, func is the anonymous function, which accepts 1 parameter parameter.
When you call func("Bonjour") you are passing Bonjour as parameter, like a normal function call.
Here you're passing an argument to setRouting that is an "anonymous function"
Functions are first-class values in Lua and can be stored in local variables, global variables and table fields. Here the function is being passed anonymously on the call stack to the setRouting function.
setRouting would be called a "higher-order function" because it accepts a function as its input.
The following page has some more information about functions in Lua:
https://www.lua.org/pil/6.html
A couple of things are happening in this example:
You're passing a function as a parameter. The callee (e.g. setRouting()) can invoke that function. This is often referred to as a callback function.
You're defining the function itself, on-the-fly. This is an example of an "anonymous function", or a lambda function.
What is the syntax to create the function, but then add it's implementation further down in code?
So roughly like this:
Define function doX
Call doX (further down in the code)
doX implemention (i.e. all functions down at the bottom of the file)
You only need to have a variable to reference. local funcName is sufficient for your purposes with one caveat. This will work:
local funcName
function callIt()
print(funcName())
end
function defineIt()
funcName = function() return "My Function" end
end
defineIt()
callIt()
As long as you define it (defineIt) before you call it (callIt), it should work as expected. You can't do something like this though (and this is the caveat):
local funcName
print(funcName())
funcName = function() return "My Function" end
You will get an error: attempt to call local 'funcName' (a nil value).
oh...so there's really no way to call funcName prior to having actually defined the function then? i.e. you still need to make sure defineIt is called before your first call to funcName itself?
I wanted to clarify this point, and I felt that an answer would be the better way than a comment.
Lua is a much simpler language than C or C++. It is built on some simple foundations, with some syntactic sugar to make parts of it easier to swallow.
There is no such thing as a "function definition" in Lua. Functions are first-class objects. They are values in Lua, just like the number 28 or the string literal "foo" are values. A "function definition" simply sets a value (namely, the function) into a variable. Variables can contain any kind of value, including a function value.
All a "function call" is is taking the value from a variable and attempting to call it. If that value is a function, then the function gets called with the given parameters. If that value is not a function (or a table/userdata with a __call metamethod), then you get a runtime error.
You can no more call a function that hasn't been set in a variable yet than you can do this:
local number = nil
local addition = number + 5
number = 20
And expect addition to have 25 in it. That's not going to happen. And thus, for the same reason, you can't do this:
local func = nil
func(50)
func = function() ... end
As Paul pointed out, you can call a function from within another function you define. But you cannot execute the function that calls it until you've filled in that variable with what it needs to contain.
As others have written, you cannot call a function at runtime that has not been assigned prior to the call. You have to understand that:
function myFunc() print('Something') end
Is just a syntax sugar for this:
myFunc = function() print('Something') end
Now, it makes sense that this kind of code would not work the way you want it to:
print(greeter(io.read())) -- attempt to call global 'greeter' (a nil value)
function greeter(name) return 'Hello '..name end
When you use the greeter variable, its value is nil, because its value is set only on the next line.
But if you want to have your "main" program on the top and the functions at the bottom, there is simple way to achieve this: create a "main" function and call it as the last thing on the bottom. By the time the function is called, all the functions will be set to the corresponding global variables:
-- start of program, your main code at the top of source code
function main()
local name = readName()
local message = greeter(name)
print(message)
end
-- define the functions below main, but main is not called yet,
-- so there will be no errors
function readName() io.write('Your name? '); return io.read() end
function greeter(name) return 'Hello, ' .. name end
-- call main here, all the functions have been assigned,
-- so this will run without any problems
main()
I'm going to pass a function to another function which should operate with the passed function. For example:
handler(fun1("foo",2))
handler(fun2(1e-10))
The handler is something like calling the passed function many times.
I'm going to bind handler, fun1, fun2 to C-functions. fun1 and fun2 are going to return some user data with a pointer to some cpp-class so that I can further recover which function was it.
The problem now is that fun1 and fun2 are going to be called before passed to handler. But I don't need this, what I need is the kind of function and its parameters. However, I should be able to call fun1 and fun2 alone without handler:
fun1("bar",3)
fun2(1e-5)
Is it possible to get the context the function is called from?
While typing the question, I realized I could do following
handler(fun1, "foo",2);
handler(fun2, 1e-10);
probably the best way is to pass the function in, with the arguments you want called in a table.
function handler(func, args)
-- do housekeeping here?
...
-- call the function
local ret = func(table.unpack(args))
-- do something with the return value?
end
handler(fun1, {"foo", 2})
handler(fun2, {1e-10})
You can just bind the call to it's arguments in another function and pass that to your handler function:
function handler(func)
-- call func, or store it for later, or whatever
end
handler(function() fun1("foo", 2) end)
handler(function() fun2(1e-10) end)
Now handler doesn't have to worry about storing and unpacking an argument table, it just calls a function.
I'm trying to call a user-defined Lua function from C. I've seen some discussion on this, and the solution seems clear. I need to grab the index of the function with luaL_ref(), and save the returned index for use later.
In my case, I've saved the value with luaL_ref, and I'm at a point where my C code needs to invoke the Lua function saved with luaL_ref. For that, I'm using lua_rawgeti as follows:
lua_rawgeti(l, LUA_REGISTRYINDEX, fIndex);
This causes a crash in lua_rawgeti.
The fIndex I'm using is the value I received from luaL_ref, so I'm not sure what's going on here.
EDIT:
I'm running a Lua script as follows:
function errorFunc()
print("Error")
end
function savedFunc()
print("Saved")
end
mylib.save(savedFunc, errorFunc)
I've defined my own Lua library 'mylib', with a C function:
static int save(lua_State *L)
{
int cIdx = myCIndex = luaL_ref(L, LUA_REGISTRYINDEX);
int eIdx = luaL_ref(L, LUA_REGISTRYINDEX);
I save cIdx and eIdx away until a later point in time when I receive some external event at which point I would like to invoke one of the functions set as parameters in my Lua script. Here, (on the same thread, using the same lua_State*), I call:
lua_rawgeti(L, LUA_REGISTRYINDEX, myCIndex);
Which is causing the crash.
My first suggestion is to get it working without storing the function in C at all. Just assign your function to a global in Lua, then in C use the Lua state (L) to get the global, push the args, call the function, and use the results. Once that's working, you've got the basics and know your function is working, you can change the way you get at the function to use the registry. Good luck!
As #Schollii mentioned, I was making this call after doing a lua_close(L).
How do I call a function that needs to be called from above its creation? I read something about forward declarations, but Google isn't being helpful in this case. What is the correct syntax for this?
Lua is a dynamic language and functions are just a kind of value that can be called with the () operator. So you don't really need to forward declare the function so much as make sure that the variable in scope when you call it is the variable you think it is.
This is not an issue at all for global variables containing functions, since the global environment is the default place to look to resolve a variable name. For local functions, however, you need to make sure the local variable is already in scope at the lexical point where you need to call the value it stores, and also make sure that at run time it is really holding a value that can be called.
For example, here is a pair of mutually recursive local functions:
local a,b
a = function() return b() end
b = function() return a() end
Of course, that is also an example of using tail calls to allow infinite recursion that does nothing, but the point here is the declarations. By declaring the variables with local before either has a function stored in it, those names are known to be local variables in lexical scope of the rest of the example. Then the two functions are stored, each referring to the other variable.
You can forward declare a function by declaring its name before declaring the actual function body:
local func1
local func2 = function()
func1()
end
func1 = function()
--do something
end
However forward declarations are only necessary when declaring functions with local scope. That is generally what you want to do, but Lua also supports a syntax more like C, in which case forward declaration is not necessary:
function func2()
func1()
end
function func1()
--do something
end
Testing under the embedded lua in Freeswitch, forward declaration does not work:
fmsg("CRIT", "It worked.")
function fmsg(infotype, msg)
freeswitch.consoleLog(infotype, msg .. "\n")
end
result:
[ERR] mod_lua.cpp:203 /usr/local/freeswitch/scripts/foo.lua:1: attempt to call global 'fmsg' (a nil value)
Reversing the order does (duh) work.
To comprehend how forward referencing in Lua works compared to C, you must understand the a fundamental difference between C compilation and the Lua execution.
In C, forward referencing is a compile time mechanism. Hence if you include a forward declaration template in a C module then any of your code following will employ this template in compiling the call. You may or may not include the function implementation in the same module, in which case both declarations must be semantically identical or the compiler will error. Since this is a compile time construct, the compiled code can be executed in any order.
In Lua, forward referencing is runtime mechanism, in that the compiled function generates a function prototype internally within the code, but this is only accessible as a runtime Lua variable or value after the execution has
passed over the declaration creating a Lua closure. Here the declaration order within the source is immaterial. It is the execution order that is important: if the closure hasn't been bound to the variable yet, then the execution will throw a "nil value" exception.If you are using a local variable to hold the function value, then normal local scoping rules still apply: the local declaration must precede its use in the source and must be within scope, otherwise the compiler will compile in the wrong global or outer local reference. So forward referencing using locals as discussed in other answer will work, but only if the Protos are bound to closures before the first call is executed.
Doesn't work for me if I try to call the function before definition. I am using this Lua script in nginx conf.
lua entry thread aborted: runtime error: lua_redirect.lua:109: attempt to call global 'throwErrorIfAny' (a nil value)
Code snippet -
...
throwErrorIfAny()
...
function throwErrorIfAny()
ngx.say("request not allowed")
ngx.exit(ngx.HTTP_OK)
end
Given some other answers have also pointed out that it didn't work for them either, it is possible that forward declaration of Lua doesn't work with other tools.
PS : It works fine if I put the function definition before and then call it after wards.
If you use OOP you can call any function member prior its "definition".
local myClass = {}
local myClass_mt = { __index = myClass }
local function f1 (self)
print("f1")
self:later() --not yet "delared" local function
end
local function f2 (self)
print("f2")
self:later() --not yet "declared" local function
end
--...
--later in your source declare the "later" function:
local function later (self)
print("later")
end
function myClass.new() -- constructor
local this = {}
this = {
f1 = f1,
f2 = f2,
later = later, --you can access the "later" function through "self"
}
setmetatable(this, myClass_mt)
return this
end
local instance = myClass.new()
instance:f1()
instance:f2()
Program output:
f1
later
f2
later