Re: Sorting table compares with nil

[Rici Lake <lua@...>]

On 2-Jul-07, at 5:35 PM, Gavin Kistner wrote:

> Given the presence of 00F08860 getting passed to my comparison 
> function,
> it seems that table.sort tries to sort all the integer keys in the
> array, instead of the convential "from 1 up to the first nil" view of 
> an
> array.

table.sort(t) sorts elements with keys from 1 to #t. #t is not
uniquely determined for tables whose integer keys are sparse.
> Is this behavior expected? Do I need to wipe out all the subsequent
> values, instead of just inserting a nil marker?

Yes. Maybe you should just construct a new table instead of trying to
recycle the old one. For example, as far as I can see, your current
code leaves old reverse-lookup elements in place, which could create
something which looks a lot like a memory leak.

> Do I need to also worry about the non-integer keys in the table? (The
> reverse-lookup elements pushed in at the end.)

Not as far as table.sort goes.