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

function valid(data, array)
 local valid = {}
 for i = 1, #array do
  valid[array[i]] = true
 end
 if valid[data] then
  return false
 else
  return true
 end
end

Here's the function I use for checking if data is in an array.