Concatenation of tables in Lua

Question

ORIGINAL POST

Given that there is no built in function in Lua, I am in search of a function that allows me to append tables together. I have googled quite a bit and have tried every solutions I stumbled across but none seem to work properly.

The scenario goes like this: I am using Lua embeded in an application. An internal command of the application returns a list of values in the form of a table.

What I am trying to do is call that command recursively in a loop and append the returned values, again in the form of a table, to the table from previous iterations.

EDIT

For those who come across this post in the future, please note what @gimf posted. Since Tables in Lua are as much like arrays than anything else (even in a list context), there is no real correct way to append one table to another. The closest concept is merging of tables. Please see the post, "Lua - merge tables?" for help in that regard.

user_2507567 · Answer

If you want to concatenate an existing table to a new one, this is the most concise way to do it:

local t = {3, 4, 5}
local concatenation = {1, 2, table.unpack(t)}

Although I'm not sure how good this is performance-wise.

user_1321625 · Answer

To add two tables together do this

    ii=0
for i=#firsttable, #secondtable+#firsttable do
    ii=ii+1
    firsttable[i]=secondtable[ii]
end

use the first table as the variable you wanted to add as code adds the second one on to the end of the first table in order.

i is the start number of the table or list.
#secondtable+#firsttable is what to end at.

It starts at the end of the first table you want to add to, and ends at the end of the second table in a for loop so it works with any size table or list.

user_17935971 · Answer

-- Lua 5.1+
function TableAppend(t1, t2)
    -- A numeric for loop is faster than pairs, but it only gets the sequential part of t2
    for i = 1, #t2 do
        t1[#t1 + 1] = t2[i] -- this is slightly faster than table.insert
    end

    -- This loop gets the non-sequential part (e.g. ['a'] = 1), if it exists
    local k, v = next(t2, #t2 ~= 0 and #t2 or nil)
    while k do
        t1[k] = v -- if index k already exists in t1 then it will be overwritten
        k, v = next(t2, k)
    end
end

user_12136236 · Answer

EDIT

Here's a better solution, the other one tended to overwrite numeric keys, the usage is still the same:

function merge(...)
  local temp = {}
  local index = 1
  local result = {}
  
  math.randomseed(os.time())

  for i, tbl in ipairs({ ... }) do
    for k, v in pairs(tbl) do
      if type(k) == 'number' then
        -- randomize numeric keys
        k = math.random() * i * k
      end
      
      temp[k] = v
    end
  end
  
  for k, v in pairs(temp) do
    if type(k) == "number" then
      -- Sort numeric keys into order
      if result[index] then
        index = index + 1
      end
      
      k = index
    end
    
    result[k] = v
  end

  return result
end

ORIGINAL

A wee bit late to the game, but this seems to work for me:

function concat(...)
  local result = {}
  
  for i, tbl in ipairs({...}) do
    for k, v in pairs(tbl) do
      if type(k) ~= "number" then
        result[k] = v
      else
        result[i] = v
      end
    end
  end
  
  return result
end

It might be a bit overcomplicated, but it takes an infinite amount of arguments, and works for both key-value pairs and regular "arrays" (numbers as keys). Here's an example

user_12968803 · Answer

Use table.concat:

http://lua-users.org/wiki/TableLibraryTutorial

> = table.concat({ 1, 2, "three", 4, "five" })
12three4five
> = table.concat({ 1, 2, "three", 4, "five" }, ", ")
1, 2, three, 4, five
> = table.concat({ 1, 2, "three", 4, "five" }, ", ", 2)
2, three, 4, five
> = table.concat({ 1, 2, "three", 4, "five" }, ", ", 2, 4)
2, three, 4

Concatenation of tables in Lua

12 Answers