How do I only get the players inside of a table?

I'm making a game, there are rounds, and if there is only one person left in the global table, then the game will make the round end and give them points.

There is a problem, where I have it set up so it will teleport everybody into a match, instead of just the people inside of the table, which means if somebody joins the game after the players have been inserted into the table, but before they have been teleported, they get teleported into the game too.

I have tried to solve this problem, but it didn't work. There are no errors in the output.

Here is the code with the problem, but it's shortened down.

_G.gameplayers = {}
for i,v in pairs(game.Players:GetPlayers()) do -- Iterates through a table of online players
if v ~= nil then 
	table.insert(_G.gameplayers, v.Name) -- Puts them in the table
	end	
end 

local spawns = chosenMap:WaitForChild('Spawns'):GetChildren()
	for _, player in pairs(game.Players:GetPlayers()) do
		if _G.gameplayers[player] and player and #spawns > 0 then
	end
end

The part that I tried to get the players in the table is on line 10, _G.gameplayers[player]

Any help is appreciated, and if more of my code is required, let me know. Thanks.

AnonymousOct 22, 2017

✓ Accepted answer

Hi mosskil123 I must first comment that your question is formatted and explained beautifully so that it's understandable and informative. :D

The problem is that when on line 10 (like you said) you use _G.gameplayers[player] in the if statement, you are checking for a key in the table with the player's metadata, not a value. See here for more documentation on keys and values.

What you want to do is to check if a value exists in a table. This is tricky business in lua. Here's how you do it.

function contains(mytable, myvalue)
   for i, v in ipairs(mytable)
      if v == myvalue then return true end
   end
   return false
end

_G.gameplayers = {}
for i,v in ipairs(game.Players:GetPlayers()) do -- Iterates through a table of online players
    table.insert(_G.gameplayers, v) -- Puts them in the table
end 

local spawns = chosenMap:WaitForChild('Spawns'):GetChildren()
for _, player in ipairs(game.Players:GetPlayers()) do
    if contains(_G.gameplayers, player) and player and #spawns > 0 then
       print("Do something")
    end
end

BUT this is a bad structure to go for. One alternative that I see here is to loop through _G.gameplayers and do our checks while looping through that array.

_G.gameplayers = {}
for i,v in ipairs(game.Players:GetPlayers()) do -- Iterates through a table of online players
    table.insert(_G.gameplayers, v.Name) -- Puts them in the table
end 

local spawns = chosenMap:WaitForChild('Spawns'):GetChildren()
for _, player in ipairs(_G.gameplayers) do
    if player and #spawns > 0 then
       print("Do something")
    end
end

tl;dr : check the second solution.

EDIT: Stole edits from the comments below. See there for more explanation about not using v~=nil and not entering v.Name into tables, rather just the player object ... etc.

AnonymousOct 22, 2017Edited Oct 25, 2017Permalink

7 comments

Thank you for what you said about my question. :). I'll now test your solution and let you know if it works or not. Thank you.

AnonymousOct 22, 2017#

I have used your second solution, but I am now getting an error with this local torso = player.Character:WaitForChild('Torso') the error is 'attempt to index field 'Character' (a nil value)'

AnonymousOct 22, 2017#

You will need to check that the Character of the player exists before doing anything with it.

AnonymousOct 22, 2017#

+1, but: 1. There's no reason to use "pairs" instead of "ipairs" when you have a simple list. 2. "if v ~= nil" is useless; if the value is nil, neither pairs/ipairs will give you that value. 3. The "if #spawns > 0" check should ideally be performed once before you iterate over all the players (rather than checking it for each player).

AnonymousOct 23, 2017#

@mosski123, you are getting that error because kools made a mistake -- near the end of line 4 it should say "v", not "v.Name"

AnonymousOct 23, 2017#

I missed those mistakes (from OP's code). I'll update my answer for future reference however.

AnonymousOct 25, 2017#

ipairs was my mistake however I think.

AnonymousOct 25, 2017#

How do I only get the players inside of a table?

1 answer

7 comments