How to save a complete table?

[lihwa@...]

Greetings to all Lua programmers,

I want to save a complete table, as it is, to a file. According to the 
information at http://lua-users.org/wiki/SaveTableToFile, it is not 
possible, because "Userdata, Functions, Metatables" will not be saved. 
This is a serious restriction.

Is there a way to save a complete table, without restrictions?

Li Hwa