How to iterate individual characters in Lua string?

Question

I have a string in Lua and want to iterate individual characters in it. But no code I\'ve tried works and the official manual only shows how to find and replace substrings :

Answer 1

All people suggest a less optimal method

Will be best:

    function chars(str)
        strc = {}
        for i = 1, #str do
            table.insert(strc, string.sub(str, i, i))
        end
        return strc
    end

    str = "Hello world!"
    char = chars(str)
    print("Char 2: "..char[2]) -- prints the char 'e'
    print("-------------------\n")
    for i = 1, #str do -- testing printing all the chars
        if (char[i] == " ") then
            print("Char "..i..": [[space]]")
        else
            print("Char "..i..": "..char[i])
        end
    end