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How to iterate through a table properly?

Asked Jul 28, 20171,459 views2 answers

BackGround In my game I'm trying to loop through a table to check and see if the table's contents matches my player's value. If it matches the value, then it takes the correctly matched table item and puts whatever it is in the Player's Charcater.

Example:

local Tab = {Water,Earth,Fire,Air}

if Player.Value == Tab then
 Value = Tab
 Value.Parent = Player.Character
end

Question Is this the correct way to loop through it? I don't want to have to make an if statement checking if the value matches because then I would have to put it in manually.

AnonymousJul 28, 2017Edited Jul 28, 2017

2 answers

✓ Accepted answer

Here's how you iterate through a table quickly (there no 'proper' way in this situation):

Here's the simplest way - but this only works on arrays (tables that only use numbers to index their values). Every iteration it adds 1 to i, which it then uses to get the value 'saved' to the number (this number is called the index). For example, using the table inside the below code, Value is saved to the number 1 and OtherValue is saved to the number 2.

local Array = {Value,OtherValue}

for i = 1,#Array do
	local Value = Array[i]
	if Value == Player.Name then
		-- do stuff
	end
end

This is my preferred way - it also has many variations, but this is roughly how it works (and it does work for any type of table).

local Table = {Value,OtherValue}

for Index,Value in pairs(Table) do
	if Value == Player.Name then
		-- do stuff
	end
end

You can iterate through a table with the two other loops, also (while and repeat). Both of these loops only work with arrays in the way I coded them.

local Array = {}
local Index = 0

while Index < #Array do
	Index = Index + 1
	local Value = Array[Index]
end

local Array = {}
local Index = 0

repeat
	Index = Index + 1
	local Value = Array[Index]
until Index == #Array

Hope I helped!

~TDP

AnonymousJul 28, 2017Edited Jul 28, 2017Permalink

1 comment

Thank you so much!

AnonymousJul 28, 2017#

local Tab = {Water,Earth,Fire,Air};


for i,v in pairs (Tab) do --iterates through everything in the table (i is the key, v is the value inside)
	if Player.Value == v then 
		Value.Value = v; --values have a .Value property so make sure you're setting the value
		Value.Parent = Player.Character
	end;
end;

AnonymousJul 28, 2017Permalink

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