Passing Tables to another script through bindable functions causes it to change if it includes instances

[UltimateJplayz (NOOOB)]

You can write your topic however you want, but you need to answer these questions:

1. What do you want to achieve? Keep it simple and clear!
   I want to pass tables to another script.

2. What is the issue? Include screenshots / videos if possible!
   When I try to use a bindable function to pass the table, the instances in the table change.
   script1:
   

   

script2:

Output:

3. What solutions have you tried so far? Did you look for solutions on the Developer Hub?
   Storing the table in a module script, but I put the code to create the table in a regular script and I can’t move the table over to the module script.

[HammyLammyYT (Fakie)]

This behavior is normal.

What you could try to do is instead of passing an instance, you could use the instance’s full name (which returns a string) and then run a function (taken from here) that will try to find the instance using the full name. This is the function:

local function GetInstance(String)
	local Table = string.split(String, ".")
	local Service = game:GetService(Table[1])
	
	local ObjectSoFar = Service
	for Index, Value in pairs(Table) do
		if Index ~= 1 then -- Don't run over the service.
			local Object = ObjectSoFar:FindFirstChild(Value)
			if Object then
				ObjectSoFar = Object
			else
				break
			end
		end
	end
	
	return (ObjectSoFar ~= Service and ObjectSoFar) or nil
end

-- GetInstance("Workspace.Baseplate") would return the actual baseplate

[MrLonely1221]

What’s the reason you can’t move the table to a module script? I just tested this in a new place and it worked going from script to script with a module script.

Source

--same script, Script2 just doesn't have the mod[workspace.Baseplate] line
local mod = require(script.Parent.ModuleScript)
mod[workspace.Baseplate] = "yolo"
print(mod, mod[workspace.Baseplate])

[goldenstein64 (Shoop)]

You can use a module that implements BindableFunction instead of a bindable instance to circumvent this problem too.

-- LuaBindableFunction.lua

local BindableFunction = {
	All = {}
}

function BindableFunction.new(name)
	local self = {
		Name = name,
		Invoke = nil
	}

	BindableFunction.All[name] = self

	return self
end

function BindableFunction.get(name)
	return BindableFunction.All[name] or BindableFunction.new(name)
end

function BindableFunction.remove(name)
	BindableFunction.All[name] = nil
end

return BindableFunction

-- script1.server.lua

local BindableFunction = require(path.to.LuaBindableFunction)

local instance = workspace.Baseplate
local table = {}
table[instance] = "random data about instance here"

local bindable = BindableFunction.get("ScriptFunction")
bindable.Invoke = function()
	print(table)
	return table
end

-- script2.server.lua

local BindableFunction = require(path.to.LuaBindableFunction)

wait(3)

local bindable = BindableFunction.get("ScriptFunction")
local table = bindable.Invoke()
print(table)
print(table[workspace.Baseplate])

I would definitely just return a table in a module if I wanted multiple scripts to access the same table though, which is what @MrLonely1221 is suggesting.

[UltimateJplayz (NOOOB)]

Thanks everyone! I didn’t think about sending the table over to the module script by requiring it and then adding the table to the module script.