Re: Multiple returns & list constructors

[Rici Lake <lua@...>]

On 19-Aug-04, at 7:37 PM, David Given wrote:
> Alas, I'm already using tables to represent a particular data value, 
> so I can't really overload them like that!
>
> What my program is is a makefile generator. You specify a target and a 
> list of source files like this:
>
> app { "one.c", "two.c", "three.c" }
>
> You can specify global options:
>
> app { optimisation=0, "one.c", "two.c", "three.c" }
>
> *And* you can specify local options:
>
> app { optimisation=3, "one.c", {optimisation=0, "two.c"}, "three.c" }
>
> This all works fine.
>
> What I want to do is to be able to use app {} as part of the 
> description of another target, say module {}. So I can do:
>
> module {
> 	app { ... },
> 	app { ... }
> }

Perhaps you need a different syntax. The one you are using might even be
construed to be confusing; it might tempt someone to write:

  app { optimisation = 3, "one.c", optimisation = 2, "two.c", "three.c"}

However, you should be able to use the __add metamethod I proposed 
earlier:

  module { app { ... } + app {...} }

Technically this could be module ( app {...} + app {...} ) but mixing 
() and {} is probably too confusing, so module would probably want to 
unwrap the table.