Re: Self-awareness of functions?

[David Kastrup <dak@...>]

Dirk Laurie <dpl@sun.ac.za> writes:

> In Lua you must take care if you want to define a global recursive 
> function.  Thus:
>
> do  local fact
>     fact = function(x) if x<2 then return 1 else return x*fact(x-1) end end
>     fac = fact
>     end
> fact = "Napoleon escaped from Elba."
> print(fac(5)) --> 120
>
> You can't omit any of that padding: create a local variable, then 
> assign it to a global variable, all in an enclosing block.

do
  local function fact(x) if x<2 then return 1 else return x*fact(x-1)
  end end
  fac = fact
end
fact = "Napoleon escaped from Elba."
print(fac(5))

is a bit more compact on the eyes.

-- 
David Kastrup