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On 02/05/2011 10.49, Eike Decker wrote:
2011/5/2 Lorenzo Donati<lorenzodonatibz@interfree.it>:
I know that I could either:
1) generate an unique ID with a custom algorithm
2) upon creation, before attaching the metatable to the object being
created, call tostring on the object and store the ID in a (weak?) table.
3) use a proxy and return the ID of the "private" object instead (preserves
uniqueness because of the 1-to-1 relationship between proxies and objects)

You can modify 1) a bit to make it less performance critical:

do
local idcnt = 0
local idcache = setmetatable({},{__mode='k',__index = function(t,k)
idcnt = idcnt + 1 t[k] = idcnt return idcnt end})
function getid (o) return idcache[o] end
end

So this would only affect performance for debug code that tags objects
if you take a look at them.

Nice technique.
I think Hisham's suggestion suits my needs better, but this technique is really worth remembering for future reference. Interesting way of implementing lazy initialization using the subtleties of metamethods call sequence.



Aside from this, I don't know any other trick. Well, you could also
erase the metatable, get the string and restore the original metatable
again.

Well, I thought of this, but it seemed a bit drastic approach to me. I feared it could have some nasty side effects. Just a feeling, though - the only downside of erasing the metatable of which I can think in a rational way is something related to what Mike Pall mentioned in another thread: IIRC there is some form of caching for metatables/metamethods, so erasing the metatable could maybe thrash the cache.

I still feel the metatable of an object is something to be left alone once set whenever possible, but I must admit that maybe this is only an irrational feeling due to my past experience on "static" languages like C++/Java.


And besides all that: You could look into the Lua code and find out,
how the table:#xxx code looks like and provide it as additional
function if you have access on the C API. E.g. table.getpointerid


Well, I'm not completely unaware of C, but I don't feel competent enough to tinker with the bowels of Lua. I wrote a couple of toy extensions using Lua C API, just to play with the API and refresh my C knowledge, but I really prefer a pure Lua solution. I feel on much safer ground there.

Cheers,
Eike



Thanks for the suggestions.
Cheers

--
Lorenzo