How to set pointer to nil

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#1

How would I replicate this in lua

c++
*pointer_table = nil

if I do in lua

pointer_table = nil

it will just make the variable = nil and not the actual table

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#2

What are you trying to do exactly? You can’t really “un-declare” things this way, you only set its value as, well, nothing.

#3

Once all references to an object are gone, id est the variables are all nil or out of scope, the object will be garbage collected.

#4

Why do you need the table to be nil?
If the variable is nil then you could set it to a table…

#5

I don’t have the the location of the original table though (because it’s in an array at a random index) but I have a variable that points to it, I want to set the table to nil through the variable.

#6

You can use table.find to find where in the array it is and then set the value at that index to nil.

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#7

That uses linear search and would be very slow and inefficient in an array with 10,000 indexes

#8

To the extent of my knowledge, pointers are not possible in Luau, unfortunately. What you are attempting to accomplish is not going to work. This may be confusing since referencing a table and then adjusting the reference’s children will affect the actual table.

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#9

How urgently do you need it removed? Can you make a garbage cleanup trawler that will go through the table in a low-priority manner and find the objects to set to nil? You could catch multiple with one pass this way.

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#10

So that’s sort of what I do, OnPlayerRemoving I loop through the table and take out what I don’t want.

I really just wanted to know if I can do it an easier way but it seems in Lua you can’t.

Thanks for the help though.

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