lua_setfield popping the table from the stack?

["Lua" <lua@...>]

Hi,

My goal is to export a set of constants under various tables.  In the example below, I'm looking for something like this:

MyAppRootTable
     Foo (Value = 5)
     OpenTypes
          Path (Value = eOTPath)
          User (Value = eOTUser)

In order to accomplish this, I wrote "lua_RegisterValues()" as below.  However, it seems as though lua_setfield() pops the table from the stack whereas the documentation says it only pops the value.  Furthermore, it seems this only happens when I'm setting the field to a table.  In other words, the following code works correctly, but I'm not sure why I need the line with the ***** next to it.

Thanks for any insight you may have,

James.

---


typedef struct tagExportedNames {
        char* pName;
        const tagExportedNames * pSubNames;
        unsigned long Value;
} tExportedNames;

static const tExportedNames OpenTypeList[] =
{
        {"Path",NULL,eOTPath},
        {"User",NULL,eOTUser},
        {NULL,NULL,0}
};

static const tExportedNames FCList[] =
{
        {"Foo",NULL,5},
        {"OpenTypes",OpenTypeList,0},
        {NULL,NULL,0}
};

static void lua_RegisterValues(lua_State*L,const tExportedNames* pExportedNames)
{
        while (pExportedNames->pName!=NULL) {
               if (pExportedNames->pSubNames!=NULL) {
                      lua_newtable(L);
                      lua_pushvalue(L,-1);                               ----********
                      lua_setfield(L,-3,pExportedNames->pName);
                      lua_RegisterValues(L,pExportedNames->pSubNames);
                      lua_pop(L,1);
               } else {
                      lua_pushinteger(L,pExportedNames->Value);
                      lua_setfield(L,-2,pExportedNames->pName);
               }
               pExportedNames++;
        }
}