Finding a player?

So, for a command, I've got it set to run a function to find the player:

	local plyr = getPlayer(message:sub(7))

And heres the function:

function getPlayer(str)
	local plyr = {} 
str = str:lower()
	local l = string:len(str)
							for i,v in pairs(game.Players:children()) do
if v:IsA("Player") then
	if v.Name:sub(1, l) == str then
		plyr = v
	end
	end
end
end

But I get the error: calling 'len' on bad self (string expected, got table)

##Problem

What the script thinks you're doing is running a function on the keyword string. When you try calling a function in a table with ":" the script will assume you're calling the function with the table itself being the first argument. That's why you may see

tab = {
i = 'Hello';
p = function(self)
    print(self.i)
end }

tab:p()

Or method similar to this. The script should end up printing the i variable. What "string" is, is basically an array of functions that is a keyword for all scripts.

##Solution

You can go two ways.

1. Actually call the StringOrStringVariableHere:len() function on the actual string itself.
2. Or use string.len(StringOrStringVariableHere)

##Final Script

function getPlayer(str)
    local plyr = {} 
    str = str:lower()
    local l = string.len(str)
    for i,v in pairs(game.Players:children()) do
        if v:IsA("Player") then
            if v.Name:sub(1, l) == str then
                plyr = v
            end
        end
    end
end

######Hope this helped. If you have any questions feel free to comment below.