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

This is a swiss-armyknife function you can use:

function table.find(t, val, recursive, metatables, keys, returnBool)
    if (type(t) ~= "table") then
        return nil
    end

    local checked = {}
    local _findInTable
    local _checkValue
    _checkValue = function(v)
        if (not checked[v]) then
            if (v == val) then
                return v
            end
            if (recursive and type(v) == "table") then
                local r = _findInTable(v)
                if (r ~= nil) then
                    return r
                end
            end
            if (metatables) then
                local r = _checkValue(getmetatable(v))
                if (r ~= nil) then
                    return r
                end
            end
            checked[v] = true
        end
        return nil
    end
    _findInTable = function(t)
        for k,v in pairs(t) do
            local r = _checkValue(t, v)
            if (r ~= nil) then
                return r
            end
            if (keys) then
                r = _checkValue(t, k)
                if (r ~= nil) then
                    return r
                end
            end
        end
        return nil
    end

    local r = _findInTable(t)
    if (returnBool) then
        return r ~= nil
    end
    return r
end

You can use it to check if a value exists:

local myFruit = "apple"
if (table.find({"apple", "pear", "berry"}, myFruit)) then
    print(table.find({"apple", "pear", "berry"}, myFruit)) -- 1

You can use it to find the key:

local fruits = {
    apple = {color="red"},
    pear = {color="green"},
}
local myFruit = fruits.apple
local fruitName = table.find(fruits, myFruit)
print(fruitName) -- "apple"

I hope the recursive parameter speaks for itself.

The metatables parameter allows you to search metatables as well.

The keys parameter makes the function look for keys in the list. Of course that would be useless in Lua (you can just do fruits[key]) but together with recursive and metatables, it becomes handy.

The returnBool parameter is a safe-guard for when you have tables that have false as a key in a table (Yes that's possible: fruits = {false="apple"})