RE: table.remove behavior?

["Jerome Vuarand" <jerome.vuarand@...>]

I think the problem is that you consider a table with some nil at low numeric indices to be an array. An array in lua is (a Lua guru should check this) a table with increasing contiguous integer indices starting at one (1). If you set a[1] to nil you reduce array size to 0 (as a call to #a would tell you). So there is no more position 97, and so table.remove(a, 97) should do nothing, and thus let a[97] where it is.

Considering an array stops at the first nil integer index is an important part of the lua array concept, and it can't be changed I think. Many code using both hashmap and array concept on same tables would break.

Doub.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : lua-bounces@bazar2.conectiva.com.br [mailto:lua-bounces@bazar2.conectiva.com.br] De la part de Paul Chiusano
Envoyé : 19 mars 2006 11:58
À : Lua list
Objet : table.remove behavior?

I don't think that table.remove works correctly for tables which have nil at their start. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Here's an example I could find which fails:

> a = {}; for i=1,100 do a[i] = i end
> -- add some nils to the front
> for i=1,75 do a[i] = nil end
> table.remove(a, 97)
> print(a[97]) -- should be 98, right?
97

Okay, looking at the code for table.remove, I think I see what's happening:

static int tremove (lua_State *L) {
  int e = aux_getn(L, 1);
  int pos = luaL_optint(L, 2, e);
  if (e == 0) return 0;  /* table is `empty' */
  luaL_setn(L, 1, e - 1);  /* t.n = n-1 */
  lua_rawgeti(L, 1, pos);  /* result = t[pos] */
  for ( ;pos<e; pos++) {     /* aha! this loop may not execute,
depending on whether
                                                the getn function returns. */
    lua_rawgeti(L, 1, pos+1);
    lua_rawseti(L, 1, pos);  /* t[pos] = t[pos+1] */
  }
  lua_pushnil(L);
  lua_rawseti(L, 1, e);  /* t[e] = nil */
  return 1;
}

What about using the first encountered nil as the halting condition for the loop? That would always work. Here it is in Lua:

function table.remove(t, ind)
  local next
  repeat
     next = t[ind+1]
     t[ind] = next
     pos = pos+1
   until next==nil
end

Even if the behavior is not changed, I'd like to see a stronger warning that table.remove relies on the length of the table being tracked correctly.

Here's what the ref manual says currently:
"
Removes from table the element at position pos, shifting down other elements to close the space, if necessary. Returns the value of the removed element. The default value for pos is n, where n is the length of the table, so that a call table.remove(t) removes the last element of table t.
"

What about adding something like: 'table.remove relies on the length of the table being tracked correctly, even when an explicit index is specified. Thus, it may not work as expected if a table contains any nil values.'

Best,
Paul