How do I use metatables

The devhub page for metatables is extremely confusing and I’m not sitting through a 30 minuted youtube commentary about metatables. I want a straight answer. How do I use metatables, what is it used for, and what can it do that regular tables can’t.

2 Likes

in short, metatables gives your tables the ability to have functions within tables which is mostly used when created classes with modulescripts.

There are many posts on the developer forums regarding the use of metatables. I suggest you look through these when you get a chance.

https://devforum.roblox.com/t/why-do-people-use-metatables/605890/16
https://devforum.roblox.com/search?q=metatables

2 Likes

The way this is worded makes it sound like you need a metatable to do something like {print, function() end, math.cos}. You can put a function into tables without metatables, metatables just expand the functionality of tables (e.g. allowing you to add them)

5 Likes

How so? What would I be able to add?

Awesome’s links have more info on the specifics of how, but basically you can use metatables to define custom behavior for tables, including the ability to add them. So something like {1, 2, 3} + 4 --> {1, 2, 3, 4} could be doable if the first table had a metatable with an __add function that makes it do that. You can pretty much just define your own behavior for any operator, including stuff like table.x = y and table.x (getting and setting, which is the most common use for them).

2 Likes