so I found that there's no classes in lua, how can we do OOP with functions or other ways?
--I heard that we can do OOP like this:
local className = {}
local function className.my_function(_t)
--the program
end
but it can only make one object.....
A good place for storing function/methods is the metamethod __index of a metatable.
Look at a string. The datatype is metatabled with an __index referencing the string library...
-- Using a string like an object with attached methods
print(_VERSION:upper():reverse())
-- Prints out: 4.5 AUL
tprint = function(tab) for k, v in pairs(tab) do print(k, "=>", v) end end
tprint(getmetatable(_VERSION).__index)
-- Print out all attached string methods/functions
So try by yourself to attach table functions as table methods...
my_oop = setmetatable({1, 2, 3, 4, 5},{__index = table})
my_oop:concat("\n")
-- Puts out table values with attached method: concat()
So feel free to attach whats usefull for your datatype.
Related
I'm new to Lua and trying to understand the concept of OOP in Lua. To do so, I've tried creating an object and creating methods and "private variables". My issue is when I try to use "setters" or "getters", it's indicating that my tables are returning NIL which means I'm either having a scoping issue or something else I can't figure out.
The kicker is I'm using an example from an online Lua coding tutorial, and when I run the tutorial it works flawlessly. However, when I run mine, I get NIL or nothing outputs whenever I try to "get" or return a value from one of the member functions.
I'm using a couple of different environments:
ZeroBrain
Sublime Text
Lua for Windows
Do you know why my code is not returning populated tables?
newPlayer = function(n, h, a, r)
player = {}
n = n or ""
h = h or 100
a = a or 100
r = r or 0
function player:getPlayerName()
return n
end
function player:getPlayerHealth()
return h
end
function player:getPlayerArmor()
return a
end
function player:getPlayerRank()
return r
end
function player:setPlayerName(arg)
n = arg
end
function player:setPlayerHealth(arg)
h = arg
end
function player:setPlayerArmor(arg)
a = arg
end
function player:setPlayerRank(arg)
r = arg
end
function player:connect(arg)
print(string.format(" %s joined" , arg))
end
return player
end
player1 = newPlayer("John", 100, 100, 1000)
player1.getPlayerName()
Your code does not contain "populated tables" to return.
Your newPlayer function does create a table, and it does return it. It creates a number of functions within that table. But that's all newPlayer does: creates a table and puts some functions in it.
The data accessed by those functions is not part of the table. n, h, a, and r (BTW, please use better variable names) are all local variables. Your inner functions will access the specific stack containing those variables, but the variables themselves will not be magically associated with the table.
Your principle problem is almost certainly with the setters. And it comes from a combination of this:
function player:setPlayerName(arg)
with this:
player1.getPlayerName()
When you create a function using a : character between a table name and the function's name, you are using syntactic sugar for a function which implicitly takes as its first argument a value called self. As the name suggests, this is supposed to represent the object which this function is being called upon. So your function creation code is equivalent to:
function player.setPlayerName(self, arg)
Since you create all of your functions with :, all of your functions take at least one parameter.
The : syntax can also be used when calling such functions. If you did player1:getPlayerName(), this would cause the table you accessed to find the getPlayerName function to be used as the first argument in the function call. So that line would be equivalent to player1.getPlayerName(player1).
Obviously, these two syntaxes are mirrors of one another: functions created with : take a parameter that is expected to refer to the table it is being called on, and functions called with : will be given the table which was accessed to get that function.
But... your code didn't stick to the symmetry. You created the functions with :, but you call them with .
Now, you get functions are able to get away with this because... well, none of your values are actually part of the table. So your get functions just return the local value that they adopted from their creating context.
The set functions pose a problem. See, they take a parameter. But because the function was declared with :, they really take two parameters, the first being the implicit self.
Now, : syntax is just syntactic sugar; it's just a convenient way to do what you could have done yourself. So it is in theory OK to call a function with . even if you created it with :. But if you do so, you must pass the table as the first parameter. Though your code doesn't show it, I strongly suspect you didn't do that.
If you called player1.setPlayerName("foo"), what will happen is that the implicit self parameter will get the value "foo", and the arg parameter will be nil. And you will assign that nil value to the n local variable. So subsequent calls to player1.getPlayerName() will return nil.
Basically, what's going on here is that you're combining two different ways of creating objects in Lua. You stored your private data in a way that external code cannot access (ie: local upvalues), but that data is now no longer part of the table itself. Which means that, although you dutifully create those functions with : syntax to indicate that they take a self table, they never actually use that table. And because they never use the table, it's a lot harder to figure out what's going wrong.
Basically, the key here is to be symmetrical. If you create a function with :, then you should either call it with : or make sure to pass it the object table as the first parameter.
Broadly speaking, the standard way to create private members is by convention, not by forbidding it. That is, you agree not to mess with any members of a table other than those with certain names. Python convention is to pretend that names starting with _ don't exist, and Lua programs sometimes use that.
Upvalues are an interesting solution for private variables, but they do come with problems. If you want to invent a member variable, you have to do it in a centralized place rather than wherever you might need one. Even if the variable is optional, you have to create a named local at the top of the function.
TLDR of Nicol's answer, see my answer to another question:
function player:setPlayerArmor(arg)
a = arg
end
The : syntax is syntactic sugar. It creates an implicit 'self' argument when declared, and when used. If you declare it one way and use it another, the arguments won't be what you're expecting. Say your player has 100 health. Look at this result:
player1.setPlayerHealth(55, 66)
print(player1.getPlayerHealth())
-- will display '66', not '55' because `:` declares implicit 'self' argument
This displays 66 because the setPlayerHealth function has an implicit 'self' parameter because it was declared with :. If you instead called it
with the ::
player1:setPlayerHealth(55, 66)
print(player1:getPlayerHealth())
-- will display '55' because `:` passes player1 as self
function player:setHealth1(arg)
-- implicit 'self' argument refers to player1 when called on player1
end
-- is the same as
function player.setHealth2(self, arg)
-- with `.` notation, you need to add the 'self' argument explicitly
end
player1.setHealth1(31) -- self argument will be 31 and arg will be nil
player1.setHealth2(32) -- self argument will be 32 and arg will be nil
player1:setHealth1(33) -- self argument will be player1 and arg will be 33
player1:setHealth2(34) -- self argument will be player1 and arg will be 34
There is an API provided function, let's call it createBase which returns a table (object). I want to add methods to this table, but I can't just do x = createBase() and then function x:foo() because I have another function similar to createBase, but it's createExtended. It might be easier to explain with the code I have so far:
import api --I don't know how you'd do this in vanilla Lua, I'd use os.loadAPI("api") but that's computercraft specific, I think
Extended = {}
function Extended:foo()
print("foo from extended")
end
function createExtended(params)
x = api.createBase(params)
Extended.__index = x
return Extended --this is obviously wrong: you can't return a class and expect it to be an object
end
Of course, this doesn't work: but I don't know how I might make it work either. Let's assume the table returned by createBase has a function called bar which just prints bar from base. With this test code, the following outputs are given:
e = createExtended()
e.foo() --prints "foo from extended"
e.bar() --nil, therefor error
How can I make this possible, short of defining function x.bar() inside createExtended?
Thanks in advance.
The very simplest way is to attach the method to it directly, instead of using a metatable.
local function extend(super_instance)
super_instance.newMethod = newMethod
return super_instance
end
local function createExtended(...)
return extend(createSuper(...))
end
This will work, unless your superclass uses __newindex (for example, preventing you from writing to unknown properties/methods), or iterates over the keys using pairs or next, since it will now have an additional key.
If for some reason you cannot modify the object, you will instead have to 'wrap' it up.
You could make a new instance which "proxies" all of its methods, properties, and operators to another instance, except that it adds additional fields and methods.
local function extend(super_instance)
local extended_instance = {newMethod = newMethod}
-- and also `__add`, `__mul`, etc as needed
return setmetatable(extended_instance, {__index = super_instance, __newindex = super_instance})
end
local function createExtended(...)
return extend(createSuper(...))
end
This will work for simple classes, but won't work for all uses:
Table iteration like pairs and next won't find the keys from the original table, since they're not actually there. If the superclass inspects the metatable of the object it is given (or if the superclass is actually a userdata), it will also not work, since you'll find the extension metatable instead.
However, many pure-Lua classes will not do those things, so this is still a fairly simple approach that will probably work for you.
You could also do something similar to Go; instead of having a way to 'extend' a class, you simply embed that class as a field and offer convenience to directly calling methods on the wrapping class that just call the methods on the 'extended' class.
This is slightly complicated by how 'methods' work in Lua. You can't tell if a property is a function-that-is-a-property or if it's actually a method. The code below assumes that all of the properties with type(v) == "function" are actually methods, which will usually be true, but may not actually be for your specific case.
In the worst case, you could just manually maintain the list of methods/properties you want to 'proxy', but depending on how many classes you need to proxy and how many properties they have, that could become unwieldy.
local function extend(super_instance)
return setmetatable({
newMethod = newMethod, -- also could be provided via a more complicated __index
}, {
__index = function(self, k)
-- Proxy everything but `newMethod` to `super_instance`.
local super_field = super_instance[k]
if type(super_field) == "function" then
-- Assume the access is for getting a method, since it's a function.
return function(self2, ...)
assert(self == self2) -- assume it's being called like a method
return super_field(super_instance, ...)
end
end
return super_field
end,
-- similar __newindex and __add, etc. if necessary
})
end
local function createExtended(...)
return extend(createSuper(...))
end
This question already has answers here:
Difference between . and : in Lua
(3 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I'm still playing around with lua modules and I've found the following "interesting" issue that occurs depending on how you create your methods / functions inside a module.
Note the following code in a file called test_suite.lua:
local mtests = {} -- public interface
function mtests:create_widget(arg1)
print(arg1)
-- does something
assert(condition)
print("TEST PASSED")
end
return mtests
Using the above code, arg1 is always nil, no matter what I pass in when calling create_widget(). However, if I change the definition of the function to look like this:
function mtests.create_widget(arg1) -- notice the period instead of colon
print(arg1)
-- does something
assert(condition)
print("TEST PASSED")
end
then, the system displays arg1 properly.
This is how I call the method:
execute_test.lua
local x = require "test_suite"
x.create_widget(widgetname)
Can you tell me what the difference is? I've been reading: http://lua-users.org/wiki/ModuleDefinition
But I haven't come across anything that explains this to me.
Thanks.
All a colon does in a function declaration is add an implicit self argument. It's just a bit of syntactic sugar.
So if you're calling this with (assuming you assign the mtests table to foo), foo.create_widget(bar), then bar is actually assigned to self, and arg1 is left unassigned, and hence nil.
foo = {}
function foo:bar(arg)
print(self)
print(arg)
end
Calling it as foo.bar("Hello") prints this:
Hello
nil
However, calling it as foo:bar("Hello") or foo.bar(foo, "Hello") gives you this:
table: 0xDEADBEEF (some hex identifier)
Hello
It's basically the difference between static and member methods in a language like Java, C#, C++, etc.
Using : is more or less like using a this or self reference, and your object (table) does not have a arg1 defined on it (as something like a member). On the other way, using . is just like defining a function or method that is part of the table (maybe a static view if you wish) and then it uses the arg1 that was defined on it.
. defines a static method / member, a static lib, Which means you can't create a new object of it. static methods / libs are just for having some customized functions like printing or download files from the web, clearing memory and...
: Is used for object members, members that are not static. These members change something in an object, for example clearing a specified textbox, deleting an object and...
Metamethod functions(Functions that have :) can be made in lua tables or C/C++ Bindings. a metamethod function is equal to something like this on a non-static object:
function meta:Print()
self:Remove()
end
function meta.Print(self)
self:Remove()
end
Also, with . you can get a number/value that doesn't require any call from a non-static or static object. For example:
-- C:
int a = 0;
-- Lua:
print(ent.a)
-- C:
int a()
{
return 0;
}
-- Lua:
print(ent:a())
same function on a static member would be:
print(entlib.a())
Basically, each non-static object that has a function that can be called will be converted to : for better use.
We need to serialize a Lua table that includes strings, numbers, tables, and functions. There is code in the Programming Lua book to serialize tables that consist of strings, numbers, and tables. We tried to adapt this function to add the ability to serialize functions. Specifically, we added a case for type == 'function' and called string.dump on the function:
if type(o) == "number" then
return tostring(o)
elseif type(o) == "function" then
return "loadstring("..string.dump(o)..")"
else
-- assume it is a string
return string.format("%q", o)
end
This injected Lua bytecode into the rest of the plaintext table representation. That was the closest thing we could come up with.
We don't care if he serialized result is human-readable or not, it just has to be able to work like this:
mytable = [some complicated lua table with functions]
dump = dump_t(mytable)
...
loaded_table = load_t(dump)
Any ideas?
See the wiki page for a number of implementations.
Tony Finch's version might work for you.
Lua does not have build in support for OO, but it allows you to build it yourself. Could you please share some of the ways one can implement OO?
Please write one example per answer. If you have more examples, post another answer.
I like to think of OOP as being the encapsulation of data inside a container (the Object) coupled with a subset of operations that can be done with this data. There IS a lot more to it, but let's assume that this simple definition is all and build something in Lua from it (also some familiarity with other OO implementations can be a nice boost for the reader).
As anyone with a little exposure to Lua may know, tables are a neat way to store key-value pairs and in combination with strings, things start to become very interesting:
local obj = {} -- a new table
obj["name"] = "John"
obj["age"] = 20
-- but there's a shortcut!
print("A person: " .. obj.name .. " of the age " .. obj.age)
String values as keys in a table can be accessed in a way very alike to the members of a struct in C or the public members of an object in C++/Java and similar languages.
And now for a cool magic trick: let's combine this with anonymous functions.
-- assume the obj from last example
obj.hello = function ()
print("Hello!")
end
obj.goodbye = function ()
print("I must be going.")
end
obj.hello()
obj.goodbye()
Awesome right? We now have means of having functions stored inside our tables, and again you can see it resembles how methods are used in other OOP languages. But something is missing. How can we access the data that belongs to our object inside our method definitions? This is generally addressed by changing the signature of the functions in the table to something like this:
-- assume the obj from last example
obj.inspect = function (self)
print("A person: " .. self.name .. " of the age " .. self.age)
end
obj.hello = function (self)
print(self.name .. ": Hello! I'm " .. self.name)
end
obj.goodbye = function (self)
print(self.name .. ": I must be going.")
end
-- now it receives the calling object as the first parameter
obj.inspect(obj) -- A person: John of age 20
obj.hello(obj) -- John: Hello! I'm John
obj.goodbye(obj) -- John: I must be going
That solves it in a simple manner. Maybe drawing a parallel to the way things work in Python (methods always get a explicit self) can aid you in learning how this works in Lua. But boy, isn't it inconvenient to be passing all these objects explicitly in our method calls? Yeah it bothers me too, so there's another shortcut to aid you in the use of OOP:
obj:hello() -- is the same as obj.hello(obj)
Finally, I have just scratched the surface of how this can be done. As has been noted in Kevin Vermeer's comment, the Lua Users Wiki is an excellent source of information about this topic and there you can learn all about how to implement another important aspects of OOP that have been neglected in this answer (private members, how to construct objects, inheritance, ...). Have in mind that this way of doing things is a little part of the Lua philosophy, giving you simple orthogonal tools capable of building more advanced constructs.
For a quick and dirty oo implementation I do something like -
function newRGB(r,g,b)
return {
red=r;
green=g;
blue=b;
name='';
setName = function(self,name)
self.name=name;
end;
getName = function(self)
return self.name;
end;
tostring = function(self)
return self.name..' = {'..self.red..','..self.green..','..self.blue..'}'
end
}
end
which can then be used like -
blue = newRGB(0,0,255);
blue:setName('blue');
yellow = newRGB(255,255,0);
yellow:setName('yellow');
print(yellow:tostring());
print(blue:tostring());
for a more full featured approach I would use an oo library as was mentioned by eemrevnivek. You can also find a simple class function here which is somewhere between full on library and quick and dirty.
This is already answered, but anyway, here's my oop implementation: middleclass.
That lib provides the bare minimum for creating classes, instances, inheritance, polymorphism and (primitive) mixins, with an acceptable performance.
Sample:
local class = require 'middleclass'
local Person = class('Person')
function Person:initialize(name)
self.name = name
end
function Person:speak()
print('Hi, I am ' .. self.name ..'.')
end
local AgedPerson = class('AgedPerson', Person) -- or Person:subclass('AgedPerson')
AgedPerson.static.ADULT_AGE = 18 --this is a class variable
function AgedPerson:initialize(name, age)
Person.initialize(self, name) -- this calls the parent's constructor (Person.initialize) on self
self.age = age
end
function AgedPerson:speak()
Person.speak(self) -- prints "Hi, I am xx."
if(self.age < AgedPerson.ADULT_AGE) then --accessing a class variable from an instance method
print('I am underaged.')
else
print('I am an adult.')
end
end
local p1 = AgedPerson:new('Billy the Kid', 13) -- this is equivalent to AgedPerson('Billy the Kid', 13) - the :new part is implicit
local p2 = AgedPerson:new('Luke Skywalker', 21)
p1:speak()
p2:speak()
Output:
Hi, I am Billy the Kid.
I am underaged.
Hi, I am Luke Skywalker.
I am an adult.
The approach I use usually goes like this:
class = {} -- Will remain empty as class
mt = {} -- Will contain everything the instances will contain _by default_
mt.new = function(self,foo)
local inst={}
if type(foo) == "table" then
for k,v in pairs(foo) do
inst[k]=v
end
else
inst.foo=foo
end
return setmetatable(inst,getmetatable(class))
end
mt.print = function(self)
print("My foo is ",self.foo)
end
mt.foo= 4 --standard foo
mt.__index=mt -- Look up all inexistent indices in the metatable
setmetatable(class,mt)
i1=class:new() -- use default foo
i1:print()
i2=class:new(42)
i2:print()
i3=class:new{foo=123,print=function(self) print("Fancy printing my foo:",self.foo) end}
Well, conclusion: with metatables and some clever thinking, about anything is possible: metatables are the REAL magic when working with classes.
The best solution I saw is not to implement OO in Lua, where it is not natural and patchy, and hence takes many lines; rather, implement it in C++ using luabridge or luabind, where it is natural and powerful!
A minimalistic example which uses LuaBridge:
m.class_<MyClass>("MyClass")
.constructor<void (*) (/* parameter types */)>()
.method("method1", &MyClass::method1)
.property_rw("property2", &MyClass::getter2, &MyClass::setter2)
.property_ro("property3", &MyClass::property3)
This would translate into natural lua syntax:
c=MyClass()
c.method1()
c.property2 = c.property3 * 2
do_stuff(c.property3)
Also one-level inheritence is supported...