How do I write a generic memoize function?

Question

I\'m writing a function to find triangle numbers and the natural way to write it is recursively:

function triangle (x)
   if x == 0 then return 0 end
   retu         


        

Answer 1

I bet something like this should work with variable argument lists in Lua:

local function varg_tostring(...)
    local s = select(1, ...)
    for n = 2, select('#', ...) do
        s = s..","..select(n,...)
    end
    return s
end

local function memoize(f)
    local cache = {}
    return function (...)
        local al = varg_tostring(...)
        if cache[al] then
            return cache[al]
        else
            local y = f(...)
            cache[al] = y
            return y
        end
    end
end

You could probably also do something clever with a metatables with __tostring so that the argument list could just be converted with a tostring(). Oh the possibilities.