Search for an item in a Lua list

Question

If I have a list of items like this:

local items = { \"apple\", \"orange\", \"pear\", \"banana\" }

how do I check if \"orange\" is in this

Answer 1

Use the following representation instead:

local items = { apple=true, orange=true, pear=true, banana=true }
if items.apple then
    ...
end