Weird table behaviour

[ThoseNamesAreGood]

I’m setting a table to a default table yet it seems to have no change.

When I index the table I want as seen in the code below it resets that table and it works.

islandDataTable[proximity.Parent.Parent.Name] = default_island_variable_table

However if I were to use this code, it doesn’t work:

local islandTable = islandDataTable[proximity.Parent.Parent.Name]
islandTable = default_island_variable_table

FYI, the tables are both the exact same I’m pretty sure. I’m just unsure as to why it isn’t resetting when I use the second way.

[Orbular3]

islandTable is a variable that stores the value of islandDataTable[proximity.Parent.Parent.Name]. It does not store the memory location of islandDataTable[proximity.Parent.Parent.Name]. This means any changes to the variable do not affect the table. To change a value in the table you have to use the first piece of code you provided

[Brambes230605 (Brambes)]

this is because setting a variable to an already existing table doesn’t make it a different table like a number or a string would instead it’s only a reference to that table.
For example

local a = {}
local b = a

print(a, b) --> table: 0xcc4362a8c75f31df  {}  table: 0xcc4362a8c75f31df  {}

both print the exact same memory addres because they both refer to the same table.
To fix your issue you can use table.clone to make a copy of your default table.
note that table.clone is only a shallow copy so it won’t copy a nested table.
If your default table has nested tables (a table in the table) then you would want to deepCopy your table.
You can find more info here