OOP in Corona, accessing vars from outside class - oop

Question

looking for some help with accessing variables from outside a Corona OOP class. Here's the bare-bones code:
module(..., package.seeall)
local widget = require "widget"
picker = {}
picker.__index = picker
function picker.new()
local picker_object = {}
setmetatable(picker_object,picker)
picker_object.theHour = 12
picker_object.theMin = 0
picker_object.am = true
return picker_object
end
function picker:getHour()
return self.theHour
end
function picker:getMin()
return self.theMin
end
self is coming back as nil when I try and call getHour and getMin from outside the class. What syntax should I use instead to return my theHour and theMin variables?
Thanks!!

Answer 1

I tried out your code and there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is probably in the way you're accessing this module. Here's my main.lua that works with your code (I gonna guess your file is named picker.lua):
local picker = require "picker"
local picker_obj = picker.picker.new()
-- the first picker is the module (picker.lua)
-- the second is the picker class in the file
print("minute: " .. picker_obj:getMin())
print("hour: " .. picker_obj:getHour())
Also, The module(..., package.seeall) command has been deprecated, see this blog post for a better way to make your module. If you use this method to create your module and still call your file picker.lua, the first two lines in my main.lua would change to:
local picker = require "picker"
local picker_obj = picker.new()
Here's the simplest way I would modify your code to use the new way of creating modules. Only the beginning and end change, everything else stays the same:
-- got rid of module(), made picker local
local picker = {}
picker.__index = picker
... -- all the functions stay the same
return picker