Re: __index returns truncated to one, why?

[Dirk Zoller <duz@...>]

On 04/10/2014 12:38 PM, steve donovan wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@trms.com> wrote:
> > local a, b, c = t[1]
> >
> > ...becoming a common idiom is reason enough for me.

I would not suggest or expect this to become a common idiom.

> But this is very ambiguous; my Lua brain immediately assigns t[1] to
> a, and leaves b and c unassigned.  Ah, but you say:  t has a special
> metamethod!  But I say, I can't tell from the static code context,
> which is where human readers operate.

If you find it confusing then please just don't use it.
It would take conscious work from your part to create a special 't'
to become exposed to this.

My point is, for simplicity and efficiency in these little buffers,
I used __call to feed data into them and I tried to use __index to
access data. Then I was surprised to find __index to be so limited.

Now instead of just returning data from __index, I wrote another
method for access. Yet I still had to implement __index in order to
push that other method. More code on the C-side of things *and* more
code for the user of the Object in Lua (which is me) *and* more work
for the CPU to do.

Is there is a good technical reason for this truncation?