Forward define a function in Lua?

Question

How do I call a function that needs to be called from above its creation? I read something about forward declarations, but Google isn\'t being helpful in this case. What is

Answer 1

If you use OOP you can call any function member prior its "definition".

local myClass = {}
local myClass_mt = { __index = myClass }

local function f1 (self)

    print("f1")
    self:later() --not yet "delared" local function
end

local function f2 (self)

    print("f2")
    self:later() --not yet "declared" local function   
end
--...
--later in your source declare the "later" function:
local function later (self)

    print("later")   
end

function myClass.new()    -- constructor
    local this = {}

    this = {
        f1 = f1,
        f2 = f2,
        later = later,  --you can access the "later" function through "self"
    }

    setmetatable(this, myClass_mt)

    return this
end

local instance = myClass.new()

instance:f1()
instance:f2()

Program output:

f1
later
f2
later