Dictionaries don’t have an order, instead just use an array with the keys in the order that you want
local order ={"a","sf","no"}-- and so forth
And use a numeric for loop or ipairs to get the key to index with.
To automate this you can look further into using metatables with the __index or __newindex methods in order to create the order array automatically when you add a new key to the table.
I don’t have much experience with issues such as this, so I’ll give the best method I can:
local dictionary = { -- the dictionary in question to be looped through
a = 'a', -- example keys and values
b = 'b',
d = 'd',
c = 'c',
e = 'e'
}
local function loopDictionaryInOrder(dict, func)
local data = {} -- array to hold the indexes
for key, value in pairs(dict) do -- loops though the dictionary provided in the first parameter
table.insert(data, key) -- this adds each key to the 'data' array
end
table.sort(data, function(a, b) -- this sorts the data array by each key's byte (numeric representations)
return tostring(a):byte() < tostring(b):byte()
end)
for _, key in ipairs(data) do
-- loops through the 'data' array and calls the function provided in the second parameter
-- the function gives the key as the first argument and the key's value as the second argument
func(key, dict[key])
end
end
-- this is an example usage of the function
loopDictionaryInOrder(dictionary, function(key, value)
-- print each key and value in order
print(key, value)
end)
Wait, I think I’ve misunderstood your original question. Do you want the table to appear in alphabetical order or in the order that the indexes are in?
I think it depends on if you want the table sorted in order that it is defined or alphabetically.
I’m not at home but I think you would implement what @dthecoolest said like this:
local order = {"a", "sf", "no", "awa", "cush", "B"} -- This determines the order in which the keys are printed
for idx = 1, #tab do
print(tab[order[idx]]) -- Or something similar to this
end
This uses the “order” table as an index into “tab”
I’m not familiar enough with metatables to know how to use them in this case.
I want them in order in the way I created the table. And I need them to have their indexes because I also want to index them somewhere else in the script
Your use-case is vauge because you’ve made your key names abstract, but this should still work fine:
local array = {
{Name = "a", Something = "yes"},
{Name = "sf", SomethingElse = 2},
-- so on and so forth..
}
You can get ordered iteration without losing key-data this way. But this comes with the problem of not being able to directly index without performing some sort of search, but this can be mitigated by using a seperate table (a “map”, or “lookup table” you might say.) to store keys that point to a value in the array. Like this:
local array = {
{Coolness = 5, Identifier = 10}
}
local map = {
CoolScale = array[1]
}
However, your mileage is still unclear, so this is likely a redundant and unecessary solution for what you’re trying to acomplish. On that regard, you might benefit from thinking about why you want that table to be strictly in order?
My actual reason is because I’m making a plugin with UI settings that I want in order. And to render the UI I just loop through the settings and create a UI element based off that.
But since its a settings table I still need to have a index data. That’s why I need it to be in order and to have key-data.
Upon revisiting this topic, I now understand that you meant to loop through the dictionary in the order you created it in, which is what I’m also trying to do right now. My only solution for this is to add the key to a separate, indexed table when you add new key-value pairs to your dictionary. Then, you can loop through the indexed table and use the returned key to get the dictionary’s corresponding values.
Usage:
local indexedTable, dictionary = {}, {}
local function addPair(key, value)
table.insert(indexedTable, key)
dictionary[key] = value
end
-- To loop, use ipairs
for _, key in ipairs(indexedTable) do
local dictionaryValue = dictionary[key]
-- Use value here
end
