LUA : How to make html table save in array?

Pattern matching is not the recommended tool for parsing HTML but in this case it works just fine.

The code below creates a table with named fields instead of numeric indices, which is probably more useful.

H=[[
<table border class="stat"><tr><th>Estate</th><th>Cost</th><th>Income</th><th>Interest</th></tr><tr><td>Power Station</td><td>15 Bil</td><td>126.1 Mil</td><td><b>0.84%</b></td></tr><tr><td>Railway</td><td>25 Bil</td><td>216.2 Mil</td><td><b>0.86%</b></td></tr><tr><td>Military Base</td><td>50 Bil</td><td>434.4 Mil</td><td><b>0.87%</b></td></tr><tr><td>Toll Road</td><td>5 Bil</td><td>34.9 Mil</td><td><b>0.70%</b></td></tr><tr><td>Water Pump</td><td>10 Bil</td><td>77.5 Mil</td><td><b>0.78%</b></td></tr></table>
]]

local name={}
local n=0
for h in H:gmatch("<th>(.-)</th>") do
    n=n+1
    name[n]=h
    --print(n,h)
end

local estate={}
local n=-1 -- skip th
for r in H:gmatch("<tr>(.-)</tr>") do
    n=n+1
    estate[n]={}
    local k=0
    for d in r:gmatch("<td>(.-)</td>") do
        k=k+1
        --print(n,k,d)
        if d:match("<b>") then d=r:match("<b>(.-)</b>") end
        estate[n][name[k]]=d
    end
end

for i=1,#estate do
    for k,v in pairs(estate[i]) do
        print(i,k,v)
    end
end