6 replies to this topic

[TheWhoAreYouPerson]

I have seen multiple points where people have used "." in their programs and ":" in their programs, usually the latter for calling functions in tables (like a file handle). Usually, i was able to use either and thought they were identical in the syntax, but I recently came across this thread and the solution requires ":" otherwise I get a "index expected, got nil" error. So I was wondering what the syntactical difference was, and the advantages to using one over the other. Thanks for the explanation in advance!

[Lyqyd]

The colon is syntactic sugar. These are the same:

object:method("argument")

object.method(object, "argument")

[awsmazinggenius]

Yeah. The : passes the table the function belongs to as it's first argument. It can make code look a bit better (among other things)

myTableForAnObject.someFunction(myTableForAnObject, "some parameter")

V.S.

myTableForAnObject:someFunction("some parameter")

[TheWhoAreYouPerson]

Thank you for the clear explanation! I was always wondering why people did that.

[Alice]

So this means that string.length("HELLO") and "HELLO":length() are the same, besides the fact I could just use #?

Edited by Death, 22 December 2013 - 07:44 PM.

[theoriginalbit]

Death, on 22 December 2013 - 07:44 PM, said:

So this means that string.length("HELLO") and "HELLO":length() are the same, besides the fact I could just use #?

yes, except for the one problem with your colon notation, I'd actually be ("HELLO"):length()

[Alice]

Okay, sorry about that. I was wondering if I had to do that, but internet broke and I couldn't edit the post.