Re: tables problem

["Wim Couwenberg" <wcou@...>]

> but do you actually need the local statement in Lua 5?
> In Lua 4, sure.  But I thought that we were "lexically scoped" now.
> Doesn't that mean that a is automatically local to the function?

No. Name lookup is still te same as in Lua 4: a variable name is searched
outward (in nested scopes) and upward (in script.) If it is not found in a
local statement or as a function argument (including implicit `self' and
`arg') then it is assumed to be a global, i.e. it will be looked up in the
function's environment.

What lexical scoping added compared to Lua 4 is:
 - upvalues do no longer need to be declared in the inner most enclosing
scope,
 - upvalues are mutable,
 - no `%' syntax anymore (yay!),
 - no global upvalues anymore (declare them local first).

So the `a' in the example would still be global if not explicitly declared
local.

--
Wim