How to create a class, subclass and properties in Lua?

Question

I'm having a hard time grokking classes in Lua. Fruitless googling led me to ideas about meta-tables, and implied that third-party libraries are necessary to simulate/write classes.

Here's a sample (just because I've noticed I get better answers when I provide sample code):

public class ElectronicDevice
{
    protected bool _isOn;
    public bool IsOn { get { return _isOn; } set { _isOn = value; } }
    public  void Reboot(){_isOn = false; ResetHardware();_isOn = true; }
}

public class Router : ElectronicDevice
{
}

public class Modem :ElectronicDevice
{
    public void WarDialNeighborhood(string areaCode)
    {
        ElectronicDevice cisco = new Router();
        cisco.Reboot();
        Reboot();
        if (_isOn)
            StartDialing(areaCode);
    }
}

Here is my first attempt to translate the above using the technique suggested by Javier.

I took the advice of RBerteig. However, invocations on derived classes still yield: "attempt to call method 'methodName' (a nil value)"

--Everything is a table
ElectronicDevice = {};

--Magic happens
mt = {__index=ElectronicDevice};

--This must be a constructor
function ElectronicDeviceFactory ()
    -- Seems that the metatable holds the fields
    return setmetatable ({isOn=true}, mt)
end

-- Simulate properties with get/set functions
function ElectronicDevice:getIsOn()  return self.isOn end
function ElectronicDevice:setIsOn(value)  self.isOn = value end
function ElectronicDevice:Reboot() self.isOn = false;
    self:ResetHardware(); self.isOn = true; end
function ElectronicDevice:ResetHardware()  print('resetting hardware...') end

Router = {};
mt_for_router = {__index=Router}

--Router inherits from ElectronicDevice
Router = setmetatable({},{__index=ElectronicDevice});

--Constructor for subclass, not sure if metatable is supposed to be different
function RouterFactory ()
    return setmetatable ({},mt_for_router)
end

Modem ={};
mt_for_modem = {__index=Modem}

--Modem inherits from ElectronicDevice
Modem = setmetatable({},{__index=ElectronicDevice});

--Constructor for subclass, not sure if metatable is supposed to be different
function ModemFactory ()
    return setmetatable ({},mt_for_modem)
end

function Modem:WarDialNeighborhood(areaCode)
        cisco = RouterFactory();
        --polymorphism
        cisco.Reboot(); --Call reboot on a router
        self.Reboot(); --Call reboot on a modem
        if (self.isOn) then self:StartDialing(areaCode) end;
end

function Modem:StartDialing(areaCode)
    print('now dialing all numbers in ' .. areaCode);
end

testDevice = ElectronicDeviceFactory();
print("The device is on? " .. (testDevice:getIsOn() and "yes" or "no") );
testDevice:Reboot(); --Ok

testRouter = RouterFactory();
testRouter:ResetHardware(); -- nil value

testModem = ModemFactory();
testModem:StartDialing('123'); -- nil value

Answer 1

Here's an example literal transcription of your code, with a helpful Class library that could be moved to another file.

This is by no means a canonical implementation of Class; feel free to define your object model however you like.

Class = {}

function Class:new(super)
    local class, metatable, properties = {}, {}, {}
    class.metatable = metatable
    class.properties = properties

    function metatable:__index(key)
        local prop = properties[key]
        if prop then
            return prop.get(self)
        elseif class[key] ~= nil then
            return class[key]
        elseif super then
            return super.metatable.__index(self, key)
        else
            return nil
        end
    end

    function metatable:__newindex(key, value)
        local prop = properties[key]
        if prop then
            return prop.set(self, value)
        elseif super then
            return super.metatable.__newindex(self, key, value)
        else
            rawset(self, key, value)
        end
    end

    function class:new(...)
        local obj = setmetatable({}, self.metatable)
        if obj.__new then
            obj:__new(...)
        end
        return obj
    end

    return class
end

ElectronicDevice = Class:new()

function ElectronicDevice:__new()
    self.isOn = false
end

ElectronicDevice.properties.isOn = {}
function ElectronicDevice.properties.isOn:get()
    return self._isOn
end
function ElectronicDevice.properties.isOn:set(value)
    self._isOn = value
end

function ElectronicDevice:Reboot()
    self._isOn = false
    self:ResetHardware()
    self._isOn = true
end

Router = Class:new(ElectronicDevice)

Modem = Class:new(ElectronicDevice)

function Modem:WarDialNeighborhood(areaCode)
    local cisco = Router:new()
    cisco:Reboot()
    self:Reboot()
    if self._isOn then
        self:StartDialing(areaCode)
    end
end

If you were to stick to get/set methods for properties, you wouldn't need __index and __newindex functions, and could just have an __index table. In that case, the easiest way to simulate inheritance is something like this:

BaseClass = {}
BaseClass.index = {}
BaseClass.metatable = {__index = BaseClass.index}

DerivedClass = {}
DerivedClass.index = setmetatable({}, {__index = BaseClass.index})
DerivedClass.metatable = {__index = DerivedClass.index}

In other words, the derived class's __index table "inherits" the base class's __index table. This works because Lua, when delegating to an __index table, effectively repeats the lookup on it, so the __index table's metamethods are invoked.

Also, be wary about calling obj.Method(...) vs obj:Method(...). obj:Method(...) is syntactic sugar for obj.Method(obj, ...), and mixing up the two calls can produce unusual errors.