Feature Request, `__next` metamethod.

[Duane Leslie <parakleta@...>]

Hi,

Would it be possible to add a `__next` metamethod to allow the `pairs`
behaviour to be inferred in the same way that now the `ipairs`
behaviour is inferred from the `__index` metamethod.  I have looked
through some discussions of this in the mailing list in the past and
it seems to have been that the `__pairs` metamethod was preferred
because it was more powerful (it allows the construction of a `next`
equivalent function as a closure with additional information).

The problem I have is that I have situations where the `next()`
function makes more sense to iterate over some userdata objects than
using `for ... pairs` but I cannot make the behaviour of these two
methods equivalent.

The idea would be to have the situation where I could define just the
`__next` metamethod, and this would be used as the result of the call
to the `next` function, and so in turn would imply that `pairs` would
call my `__next` metamethod through the standard `next` function.

Regards,

Duane.