Defining Lua methods as initialization

Question

In the Lua language, I am able to define functions in a table with something such as

table = { myfunction = function(x) return x end }

I wondered if I can created methods this way, instead of having to do it like

function table:mymethod() ... end

I am fairly sure it is possible to add methods this way, but I am unsure of the proper name of this technique, and I cannot find it looking for "lua" and "methods" or such.

My intention is to pass a table to a function such as myfunction({data= stuff, name = returnedName, ?method?init() = stuff}).

Unfortunately I have tried several combinations with the colon method declaration but none of them is valid syntax.

So...anyone here happens to know?

Answer 1

Sure: table:method() is just syntactic sugar for table.method(self), but you have to take care of the self argument. If you do

tab={f=function(x)return x end }

then tab:f(x) won't work, as this actually is tab.f(tab,x) and thus will return tab instead of x.

You might take a look on the lua users wiki on object orientation or PiL chapter 16.