Tables: Trying to return a key, not a value?
This should choose a random one from a list of 8 keys (Colors) and their values (BrickColor) but only return the key name (Which should be a string of the color chosen).
Currently the only problem is that this returns "nil" and probably not the right way to do it since I've just begun working with tables/dictionaries.
local color = {}
local colorDictionary = {
["Red"] = BrickColor.new("Bright red"); --[[Should choose 1 out of the 8 but also return the key, (Return "Red" and not "BrickColor.new("Bright red")]]
["Orange"] = BrickColor.new("Bright orange");
["Yellow"] = BrickColor.new("Bright yelow");
["Green"] = BrickColor.new("Bright green");
["Blue"] = BrickColor.new("Bright blue");
["Pink"] = BrickColor.new("Pink");
["Brown"] = BrickColor.new("Brown");
["White"] = BrickColor.new("Lily white")
};
function color.randomColor()
local randomColor = colorDictionary[math.random(0, #colorDictionary)] --weird error if 0 was a 1
print(randomColor) --prints nil so obviously not correct
end
return color
I read up on wiki that this code would probably print the value instead of the key. So because it's like that I wanted to see if printing the value worked. Any way I can change this for the key?
1 answer
Because you're using a Dictionary and not an Array, the colorDictionary[math.random(0, #colorDictionary)] always returns colorDictionary[0], which is nil.
This also explains your incorrect bounds error, because math.random(1, 0) errors, and #colorDictionary resolves to 0.
There are several ways to fix this, but the easiest is to restructure your Table:
local color = {}
local colorDictionary = {
{"Red", BrickColor.new("Bright red")};
{"Orange", BrickColor.new("Bright orange")};
{"Yellow", BrickColor.new("Bright yelow")};
{"Green", BrickColor.new("Bright green")};
{"Blue", BrickColor.new("Bright blue")};
{"Pink", BrickColor.new("Pink")};
{"Brown", BrickColor.new("Brown")};
{"White", BrickColor.new("Lily white")}
};
function color.randomColor()
local randomColor = colorDictionary[math.random(0, #colorDictionary)]
print(randomColor[1])
end
return color
You could even make the sub-tables dictionaries rather than arrays to give the attributes explicit names, like ColorName or BrickColor, but I'll leave that to you.
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