Any way to change the original element value of a dictionary by reference?

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#1

Inside a for / pairs loop, I need to change the original element value of a dictionary:

MyDictionary = {Element1 = 1, OtherElement = 2, c = 3}
for i, v in pairs(MyDictionary) do
	print(i, v) -- will print   "Element1 1", "c 3", "OtherElement 2"
	v = "x" -- will not change the original element value inside the dictionary
	MyDictionary[i] = "x" -- this will change the value
end

If I have a complex/multilevel dictionary, the reference to change the element value will be more complex, as MyDictionary[level1][level2].Elementx[level3] = value

This is not user friendly.
Any way to change the original value only by reference? (as the example above, changing the variable v would change the MyDictionary[i] value…

#2

No, there is no other way. You could make a feature request for this. But I think that tables inside tables are passed via reference, so you only have to index once. Not sure about that though.

#3

I don’t think a feature request will work since it’s based on the Lua core…

It seems to not be correct:

local MyDictionary = {InnerDictionary = {a = "test1", b = "whatever"}}
for i, v in pairs(MyDictionary) do
	for i, v in pairs(v) do
		print(i, v)
		v = "x" -- will not change the inner values
	end
end
#4

I was wrong. I indeed can change some inner element value by referencing, but in the correct way.
Here an example:

local MyDictionary = {}
MyDictionary.Param = 1
MyDictionary.Cell = {}
MyDictionary.Cell._001 = {}
MyDictionary.Cell._001.Materials = {}
table.insert(MyDictionary.Cell._001.Materials, {Material = "mat1", Distance = 123})
table.insert(MyDictionary.Cell._001.Materials, {Material = "mat2", Distance = 234})
MyDictionary.Cell._002 = {}
MyDictionary.Cell._002.Materials = {}
table.insert(MyDictionary.Cell._002.Materials, {Material = "mat3", Distance = 345})
table.insert(MyDictionary.Cell._002.Materials, {Material = "mat4", Distance = 456})

for cell, v in pairs(MyDictionary.Cell) do
	print(cell)
	for mat, v in pairs(v) do
		print("\t", mat)
		for i, v in ipairs(v) do
			print("\t\t", i)
			print(v.Distance)
			v.Distance = 999 -- this WILL CHANGE the element value
			for element, value in pairs(v) do
				print("\t\t\t", element, value)
			end
		end
	end
end

Output:

  _001
  	 Materials
  		 1
  123
  			 Distance 999
  			 Material mat1
  		 2
  234
  			 Distance 999
  			 Material mat2
  _002
  	 Materials
  		 1
  345
  			 Distance 999
  			 Material mat3
  		 2
  456
  			 Distance 999
  			 Material mat4