Lua: Variable assignment via table

Question

currently I am trying to export and re-import some variables in LUA. Imagine a table AllGlobals. The table contains all global variables used in my script, while key contains the variable name and value - surprise - contains the variable value.

What my script should do now is a reassignment of the variables. I started thinking about the following solution, which obviously isn't working:

1 function InsertGlobals()
2     for key,value in pairs(AllGlobals) do
3         key = value
4     end 
5 end

Well: Does anybody know a solution for assigning the value in line 3 to the variable name contained in key, not inserting it into the variable key itself?

coloniac · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-23 01:04:26Z

1

Solution to my own problem:

function InsertGlobals()
    for key,value in pairs(AllGlobals) do
        _G[key]=value
    end
end

answered Dec 23, 2017 at 1:04

coloniac

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Comments

user2262111 · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-23 07:36:49Z

You are only doing a shallow iteration - you don't transverse over tables in tables. For example, the table input wouldn't put something like examp.newfunc() into the _G as _G.examp.newfunc(). Also, it isn't wise to duplicate references of _G, package, and _ENV unless you really know what you are doing, meaning having a purpose.

function InsertGlobals(input)
    for key, value in pairs(input) do
        if(key ~= "_G" or key ~= "package" or key ~= "_ENV")then
            _G[key] = value
        end
    end
end

To fix the shallow iteration, all you need to do is a little recursion. I am sure you won't blow your stack with this, but if you leave _G, package, and _ENV then you definitely will.

function InsertGlobals(input)
    for key, value in pairs(input) do
        if(key ~= "_G" or key ~= "package" or key ~= "_ENV")then
            if(type(value) ~= "table")then
                _G[key] = value
            else
                InsertGlobals(value)
            end
        end
    end
end

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