Module:TableTools/doc

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This module includes a number of functions for dealing with Lua tables. It is a meta-module, meant to be called from other Lua modules, and should not be called directly from #invoke.

Loading the module

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To use any of the functions, first you must load the module.

local TableTools = require('Module:TableTools')

isPositiveInteger

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TableTools.isPositiveInteger(value)

Returns true if value is a positive integer, and false if not. Although it doesn't operate on tables, it is included here as it is useful for determining whether a given table key is in the array part or the hash part of a table.

isNan

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TableTools.isNan(value)

Returns true if value is a NaN value, and false if not. Although it doesn't operate on tables, it is included here as it is useful for determining whether a value can be a valid table key. (Lua will generate an error if a NaN value is used as a table key.)

shallowClone

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TableTools.shallowClone(t)

Returns a clone of a table. The value returned is a new table, but all subtables and functions are shared. Metamethods are respected, but the returned table will have no metatable of its own. If you want to make a new table with no shared subtables and with metatables transferred, you can use mw.clone instead. If you want to make a new table with no shared subtables and without metatables transferred, use deepCopy with the noMetatable option.

removeDuplicates

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TableTools.removeDuplicates(t)

Removes duplicate values from an array. This function is only designed to work with standard arrays: keys that are not positive integers are ignored, as are all values after the first nil value. (For arrays containing nil values, you can use compressSparseArray first.) The function tries to preserve the order of the array: the earliest non-unique value is kept, and all subsequent duplicate values are removed. For example, for the table {5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 2, 2, 1} removeDuplicates will return {5, 4, 3, 2, 1}.

numKeys

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TableTools.numKeys(t)

Takes a table t and returns an array containing the numbers of any positive integer keys that have non-nil values, sorted in numerical order. For example, for the table {'foo', nil, 'bar', 'baz', a = 'b'}, numKeys will return {1, 3, 4}.

affixNums

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TableTools.affixNums(t, prefix, suffix)

Takes a table t and returns an array containing the numbers of keys with the optional prefix prefix and the optional suffix suffix. For example, for the table {a1 = 'foo', a3 = 'bar', a6 = 'baz'} and the prefix 'a', affixNums will return {1, 3, 6}. All characters in prefix and suffix are interpreted literally.

numData

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TableTools.numData(t, compress)

Given a table with keys like "foo1", "bar1", "foo2", and "baz2", returns a table of subtables in the format { [1] = {foo = 'text', bar = 'text'}, [2] = {foo = 'text', baz = 'text'} }. Keys that don't end with an integer are stored in a subtable named "other". The compress option compresses the table so that it can be iterated over with ipairs.

compressSparseArray

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TableTools.compressSparseArray(t)

Takes an array t with one or more nil values, and removes the nil values while preserving the order, so that the array can be safely traversed with ipairs. Any keys that are not positive integers are removed. For example, for the table {1, nil, foo = 'bar', 3, 2}, compressSparseArray will return {1, 3, 2}.

sparseIpairs

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TableTools.sparseIpairs(t)

This is an iterator function for traversing a sparse array t. It is similar to ipairs, but will continue to iterate until the highest numerical key, whereas ipairs may stop after the first nil value. Any keys that are not positive integers are ignored.

Usually sparseIpairs is used in a generic for loop.

for i, v in TableTools.sparseIpairs(t) do
   -- code block
end

Note that sparseIpairs uses the pairs function in its implementation. Although some table keys appear to be ignored, all table keys are accessed when it is run.

size

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TableTools.size(t)

Finds the size of a key/value pair table (associative array). For example, for {foo = 'foo', bar = 'bar'}, size will return 2. The function will also work on arrays, but for arrays it is more efficient to use the # operator. Note that to find the size, this function uses the pairs function to iterate through all of the keys.

keysToList

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TableTools.keysToList(t, keySort, checked)

Returns a list of the keys in a table, sorted using either a default comparison function or a custom keySort function, which follows the same rules as the comp function supplied to table.sort. If keySort is false, no sorting is done. Set checked to true to skip the internal type checking.

sortedPairs

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TableTools.sortedPairs(t, keySort)

Iterates through a table, with the keys sorted using the keysToList function. If there are only numerical keys, sparseIpairs is probably more efficient.

isArray

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TableTools.isArray(value)

Returns true if value is a table and all keys are consecutive integers starting at 1.

isArrayLike

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TableTools.isArrayLike(value)

Returns true if value is iterable and all keys are consecutive integers starting at 1.

invert

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TableTools.invert(arr)

Transposes the keys and values in an array. For example, invert{ "a", "b", "c" } yields { a=1, b=2, c=3 }.

listToSet

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TableTools.listToSet(arr)

Creates a set from the array part of the table arr. Indexing the set by any of the values of the array returns true. For example, listToSet{ "a", "b", "c" } yields { a=true, b=true, c=true }.

deepCopy

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TableTools.deepCopy(orig, noMetatable, alreadySeen)

Creates a copy of the table orig. As with mw.clone, all values that are not functions are duplicated and the identity of tables is preserved. If noMetatable is true, then the metatable (if any) is not copied. Can copy tables loaded with mw.loadData.

Similar to mw.clone, but mw.clone cannot copy tables loaded with mw.loadData and does not allow metatables not to be copied.

sparseConcat

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TableTools.sparseConcat(t, sep, i, j)

Concatenates all values in the table that are indexed by a positive integer, in order. For example, sparseConcat{ "a", nil, "c", "d" } yields "acd" and sparseConcat{ nil, "b", "c", "d" } yields "bcd".

length

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TableTools.length(t, prefix)

Finds the length of an array or of a quasi-array with keys with an optional prefix such as "data1", "data2", etc. It uses an exponential search algorithm to find the length, so as to use as few table lookups as possible.

This algorithm is useful for arrays that use metatables (e.g. frame.args) and for quasi-arrays. For normal arrays, just use the # operator, as it is implemented in C and will be quicker.

inArray

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TableTools.inArray(array, searchElement)
TableTools.inArray(array, searchElement, fromIndex)

Returns true if searchElement is a member of the array array, and false otherwise. Equivalent to the javascript Array.prototype.includes() function, except fromIndex is 1-indexed instead of zero-indexed.

fromIndex

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fromIndex is the optional 1-based index at which to start searching. If fromIndex is not present, all values in the array will be searched and the array will be treated as a table/associative array (it will be iterated over using pairs()).

If fromIndex is present and an integer, the array is assumed to be a conventional array/sequence/list (indexed with consecutive integer keys starting at 1, and interated over using ipairs()). Only the values whose index is fromIndex or higher will be searched.

In the following examples, #array represents the length of the integer-keyed portion of the array.

  • If fromIndex < 0 it will count back from the end of the array, e.g. a value of -1 will only search the last integer-keyed element in the array. If fromIndex <= (-1 * #array), the entire integer-keyed portion of the array will be searched.
  • If fromIndex = 0 it will be treated as a 1 and the entire integer-keyed portion of the array will be searched.
  • If fromIndex > #array, the array is not searched and false is returned.

merge

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TableTools.merge(...)

Given the arrays, returns an array containing the elements of each input array in sequence.

extend

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TableTools.extend(arr1, arr2)

Extends the first array in place by appending all elements from the second array.

See also

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