Dynamically call different child tables.

[Otoris]

I have a table.

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tbl = {}

It has some child tables.

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tbl.a = 1
tbl.b = 2
tbl.c = 3

I have a function that sets and prints the table

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function tblscan()
    x = b
    print(tbl.x)
end

This currently returns nil. Any idea how to make this work without setting x = tbl.b?

[trubblegum]

What you're doing there does nothing.
I assume you're trying to do something like :

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t = {}
t.a, t.b, t.c = 1, 2, 3
function fetchvalue(x) return t[x] end

print fetchvalue('a')

It's usually called dynamic referencing.

You should probably read over this : http://lua-users.org/wiki/TablesTutorial
And look up function arguments too.

[Otoris]

Thanks for the helpful answer trubblegum!

[Robin]

That seems a bit unnecessary. Try this:

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 function tblscan()
    x = "b"
    print(tbl[x])
end

[meoiswa]

Are you tying to do something like this?

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table = {}
table.a = "The first"
table.b = "The third"
table.c = "Da fudge?"

function printThis(str)
    if table[str] then
        print(table[str])
    else
        print("There is no value at intex "..str.." in the table")
    end
end

printThis("a") -- > "The first"
printThis("c") -- > "Da fudge?"