Re: How to save a complete table?

[William Ahern <william@...>]

On Sat, Jan 05, 2013 at 02:41:07AM +0100, lihwa@gmx.com wrote:
> 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.

Can you identify any other language that supports saving those kinds of
things out-of-the-box? I can't think of any whatsoever.

I agree it's a serious restriction. But so is being mortal, or lacking the
ability to levitate ;)
 
> Is there a way to save a complete table, without restrictions?

Do it the way languages like Java do it--implement a `serializable'
interface for complex objects that the language is incapable of serializing
itself. But first consider how you might do that for something like an open
file handle, a network socket, or a reference to a C function. You might
have to stop short of the ideal unless you have lots of time on your hands.