How would I pool objects?

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#1

Hi. I recently learnt about object pooling, although I’m curious to how I would implement it in Lua since there are plenty of tutorials for other languages but not for this. Thanks!

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#2

I skimmed over a few definitions of what “object pooling” is and I think I have the right idea, but I’m not sure. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like it is just a collection of objects that are used for later to save the performance cost of constructing the object.

I think you should use a dictionary to define all the ‘item types’ within the pool then have those ‘item types’ be an array?

Here is an example:

local Pool = { --// Store our items
    ["Bullets"] = { --// Bullet Items

    },
    ["Apples"] = { --// Apple Items

    },
    ["Doge"] = { --// Doge Items

    }
}

local function GetItem(ItemName) --// Get a pool item
    local Items = Pool[ItemName] --// Access the specific items for the pool
    local Item = table.remove(Items, #Items) --// Remove the last one from the Pool because we're using it

    if (not Item) then --// If no free items are in the Pool then create a new one
        --// Implement constructing logic for the specific Item; 
        --// Perhaps always save an 'extra' item in the pool that cant be taken from, and clone it when its needed. 
    end

    return Item --// return our Item
end

local function DiscardItem(ItemName, Item) --// Function to discard items based on the name and the item itself. 
    local Items = Pool[ItemName] --// Access the specific items for the pool
    
    table.insert(Items, Item) --// Insert the new free item. 
end

local MyApple = GetItem("Apple") --// Instead of making a new apple we grab one that is not being used; 

DiscardItem("Apple", MyApple) --// Put it back in our Pool
MyApple = nil --// Dereference the variable in the scope

You could also try looking at these examples I found:

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