Re: light userdata

[Adrian Sietsma <adrian_groups@...>]

I find that lightuserdata is ideal for window handles (in the ms world).

I have a routine that constructs a gui object (tree view) from a lua 
table. I then have a seperate lua table indexed by the window handle of 
each tree node, as a lightuserdata. This simplifies the c/lua interface 
- i can use the c handle to lookup the appropriate lua table object.

--save a window handle
   lua_pushlightuserdata(L, hKey);
   lua_pushvalue(L,filt); // copy of filter table entry
   lua_settable(L, treeindex);


 --find data for a window handle
   lua_pushstring(L, "__treeitems");
   lua_gettable(L, LUA_GLOBALSINDEX);
   lua_pushlightuserdata(L, hKey);
   lua_gettable(L, -2);

In this case, the handle (lightuserdata) is never accessed by lua 
scripts, and so its type is irrelevant. This is a useful way of binding 
lua objects to c++ without worrying about pointers and the gc.

Adrian