Arrays/Dictionary Help

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#1

A quick question:
I want to create a dictionary with a metatable that changes itself to another value once fired.

Is it possible to just do

Dictionary = "something here"

or do I need to do some other workaround?

#2

Not sure what you mean. Do you mean you want to create a metatable that when a metamethod is fired, it changes the value inside of the metatable?

local init = {
    ['__IndexAccumulations'] = 0;
    ['__NewIndexAccumulations'] = 0;
}
local meta = {
    __index = function(tbl, index)
        tbl['__IndexAccumulations'] += 1 -- this would increase the __IndexAccumulations value by 1 when the __index metamethod is fired
    end;
    __newindex = function(tbl, index, key)
        tbl['__NewIndexAccumulations'] += 1
    end;
}

return setmetatable(init, meta)

You can also just do this to create a new value inside of the init table:

local init = {}

local meta = {
    __newindex = function(tbl, index, key)
        tbl[index] = key
    end;
}

return setmetatable(init, meta)

Or if you want to create a function like :CreateProperty, you wouldn’t even need metatables

local init = {
    ['CreateProperty'] = function(self, property, value)
        self[property] = value
    end;
}

init:CreateProperty('CoolProperty', 1)
print(init.CoolProperty) --> 1
#3

I mean like, Changing the value of the entire table itself.

Dictionary = setmetatable({}, {
__index = function(self, Index) self = nil end
})

Something along those lines.

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#4

Like destroying it? I don’t think that’s possible with an integrated method. But you can always just iterate through the table and get the values without the metatable and create a new blank table without the metatable. Same with the metatable but you’d have to use getmetatable. I’m just not sure what you mean as the first argument of __index and __newindex is a reference to the table but the table’s value itself can’t be changed as it’s a different datatype.

1 Like