Re: Clearing tables

["Wim Couwenberg" <w.couwenberg@...>]

> This is probably more efficient in lua 5.0 (untested), and at
> the very least rather simpler:
>
> function zap(table)
>      for k in table do
>          table[k] = nil
>      end
> end

I see, as long as no _new_ keys are inserted into a table during an
iteration, this is OK.  It looks like field [k] is removed in the loop but
it is not, its value is merely set to nil.  This is probably a (the?) reason
why tables don't shrink until assigning to a non-existing key?

Saves some trouble I guess.  You can never be sure how "next" will respond
for a "non-defined" index though (success or failure will depend on the
"history" of the table so to speak) but you shouldn't use "next" for
non-defined keys anyway...

Bye,
Wim