Re: Basic question about modules

[Mark Hamburg <mark@...>]

Better to not muck with environments at all. The following works just fine in Lua 5.1 and 5.2:

local M = { }

function M.exportedFunction1()

-- code

end

function M.exportedFunction2()

-- code

end

local exportedFunction2 = M.exportedFunction2 -- fast local access to the function

local function privateFunction()

-- code

end

function M.exportedFunction3()

privateFunction()

exportedFunction2()

end

return M

If you insist on mucking with the global environment, you can always add:

_G[ ... ] = M

People sometimes prefer to write all of the functions as locals and end with:

return {

exportedFunction1 = exportedFunction1,

exportedFunction2 = exportedFunction2,

exportedFunction3 = exportedFunction3

}

This allows you to see all of the exports in one place but it also requires writing the names twice. If you don't trust your spelling, you can help a bit by wrapping the right-hand sides in asserts (or using a lint that hunts for global reads).

Mark