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Help with finding a dictionary (Inside of a dictionary)?

Asked Feb 28, 2020214 views2 answers

So I have a module to choose names for a building. I thought of having a system like so:

local buildingTypes = {
	["Corporation"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
	["Shop"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
	["Food"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
	["Utility"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}}
}

function buildings:ChooseName()
	local buildingType = buildingTypes[math.random(1, #buildingTypes)] -- ERROR LINE
	local word1 = buildingType[1][math.random(1, #buildingType[1])]
	local word1 = buildingType[2][math.random(1, #buildingType[2])]
	local name = "%s %s"
	
	for i = 1, 2, 1 do
		name:Format(name, i, buildings[buildingType..i[math.random(1, #buildings.buildingType..i)]])
	end
	
	return(name)
end

It errors saying that "bad argument #2 to 'random' (interval is empty)"

AnonymousFeb 28, 2020Edited Feb 28, 2020

1 comment

Also, don't worry about the "Some stuff here", I assure you-- those tables are more than filled up XD

AnonymousFeb 28, 2020#

2 answers

✓ Accepted answer

Since you're using a dictionary instead of a numeric table, you can't do buildingTypes[someNumber], you also can't use #buildingTypes

The operator # means number of items. You can use it to get the number of items in tables/strings, but you can't use it to get the number of items in a dictionary. If you do, it'll return nil. That's why the script is erroring, because you're trying to do math.random(1, nil)

There is a way of doing what you want to do though:

#Approach One: If you really wanted to get a random item in a dictionary, you could store the keys in a separate table and then get a random key from that table.

local buildingTypes = {
    ["Corporation"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
    ["Shop"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
    ["Food"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
    ["Utility"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}}
}

local keys = {}

--populate the keys table with the buildingType keys
for key in pairs(buildingTypes)do
	table.insert(keys, key)
end

--get a random key: 
local randomNumber = math.random(1, #buildingTypes)
local randomKey = keys[randomNumber]

--get building at random key: 
local randomBuilding = buildingTypes[randomKey]

#Approach 2: If we restructure the table a bit, we can have each building be a table instead. This way we can use math.random() to get a random position in the table:

added a variable called MAX_OCCUPANTS as an example, add/remove whatever you want.

local buildingTypes = {
	{Type = "Corporation", MAX_OCCUPANTS = 320},
	{Type = "Shop", MAX_OCCUPANTS = 420},
	{Type = "Food", MAX_OCCUPANTS = 100},
	{Type = "Utility", MAX_OCCUPANTS = 10 },
}


local randomPosition = math.random(1, #buildingTypes)
local randomBuilding = buildingTypes[randomPosition]

AnonymousFeb 29, 2020Edited Feb 29, 2020Permalink

1 comment

With some minor modifications, Approach 1 worked! Tysm!

AnonymousFeb 29, 2020#

@royaltoe With some minor modifications, your system worked! Thank you! For anyone interested, here's the code:

llocal buildingTypes = {
    ["Corporation"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
    ["Shop"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
    ["Food"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}},
    ["Utility"] = {[1] = {"Some stuff here"}, [2] = {"Some stuff here"}}
}

local function randType()
	local keys = {}
	for i, v in pairs(buildingTypes) do
		keys[#keys + 1] = v
	end
	return keys[math.random(1, #keys)]
end

function buildings:ChooseName()
	local buildingType = randType()
	local prefixes = buildingType[1]
	local suffixes = buildingType[2]
	local prefix = tostring(prefixes[math.random(1, #prefixes)])
	local suffix = tostring(suffixes[math.random(1, #suffixes)])
	local name = string.format("%s %s", prefix, suffix)
	
	return(name)
end

AnonymousFeb 29, 2020Permalink

1 comment

cheers glad you got it working.

AnonymousFeb 29, 2020#

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