Trusted answers to developer questions
How do arrays work in Lua?
Dario Vincenzo Tarantini
In Lua, an array is an arrangement of data.
Note: Due to the fact that Lua is dynamically typed, it allows different types inside the same array.
Inizialize an array
One-dimensional array
We can initialize an array with {}, as shown below:
array = {}
Multi-dimensional array
Lua also supports multi-dimensional arrays; we just need to inizialize it. For example:
array = {} -- an empty array
array[1] = {} -- the second element is also a nested array
Every element in an array is indexed with an integer.
Code
One-dimensional array
Let’s look at how to read and write into a one-dimensional array:
-- inizialize an array
array = {}
-- write into it
array[0] = "Hello,"
array[1] = "Educative!"
-- print elements
print(array[0], array[1])Expected output
Hello, Educative!
Multi-dimensional array
When we need to work with multi-dimensional arrays, we need to initialize every nested array and access the numeric index in each row.
-- inizialize an array and add a nested array as second element
marray = {}
marray[1] = {}
-- add some data
marray[0] = "Hello, "
marray[1][0] = "Educative!"
marray[1][1] = "Dario!"
-- print some element
print(marray[0], marray[1][0])Expected output
Hello, Educative!
RELATED TAGS
lua
communitycreator
array
CONTRIBUTOR
Dario Vincenzo Tarantini
RELATED COURSES
View all Courses
Keep Exploring
Related Courses
