Lua list of objects

Question

I am very new to Lua and am in need of assistance. I am trying to create a list of objects that have a name and a message. I need to be able to send JSON to my app like:

{{"name":"Joe","Message":"This is a test"),{....}}

From what I've read this could be accomplished with tables, but it does not seem to be working, what I have tried so far is

message = {}
messages = {}

message["name"] = "Joe"
message["message"] = "This is a Message"

messages["1"] = ??  <--- I don't know what to do here

Lua is a proper name, not an acronym. No need for the ALL CAPS. — Nicol Bolas
– Nicol Bolas, Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 2:59
Admittedly, my JSON is a bit rusty, but that seems to be invalid JSON. Could you correct it? — Nicol Bolas
– Nicol Bolas, Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 3:01
That is very invalid JSON and probably the source of your confusion :) — starmole
– starmole, Commented Oct 4, 2012 at 5:28

Paul Kulchenko · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-04 04:09:25Z

8

Assuming you fix your JSON code, which should probably look something like {{"name":"Joe","Message":"This is a test"},{....}}, you can use the following code:

message = {name = "Joe", Message = "This is a Message"} -- capitalization in "Message" may matter
messages = {}
messages[1] = message

This is the same as:

message = {}
message["name"] = "Joe" -- or message.name = "Joe"
message["Message"] = "This is a Message" -- or message.Message = "...."
messages = {}
messages[1] = message -- the value of that element is a table

Note that I used [1] and not ["1"], which are two different keys. Given your structure, you do want to use [1].

answered Oct 4, 2012 at 4:09

Paul Kulchenko

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2 Comments

catwell Over a year ago

Also, this is Lua, you can write message.name and message.Message instead of message["name"] and message["Message"]. And you should probably write local message = {} and local messages = {}.

Paul Kulchenko Over a year ago

@catwell: right, I mentioned .name and .Message as a comment in the example.

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