Re: Lua round-trip?

[Pierre-Yves Gérardy <pygy79@...>]

Another option would be to use dependency injection. Rather than
returning a table, return a function:

    -- file:data.lua
    return function (functions)
        return {

            {
                name='foo',
                val=42,
                onA = functions.onA1,
            },

            {
                name='bar',
                val=123,
                onA = functions.onA2,
                onB = functions.onB2,
            },

        }
    end

in another file, you'll keep the functions in a corresponding table,
and pass it to the return value of

   -- file:functions.lua
    return {onA1 = function()end, onA2=function()end, ...}

then

    -- file:main.lua
    local funcs = require"functions"
    local data1 = require"data"(funcs)
    -- modify data.lua, remove data from package.loaded (or use dofile
instead of require, in whch case you don't need to clean up the package cache)
    local data2 = dofile"data"(funcs)

Another approach (a bit cleaner if you don't use require) :

    -- file:data-bis.lua
    local functions = ... -- a chunk is actually a vararg function.
    return {

        {
            name='foo',
            val=42,
            onA = onA1,
        },

        {
            name='bar',
            val=123,
            onA = onA2,
            onB = onB,
        },

    }

    -- file:main-bis.lua
    functions = require"functions"
    data = loadfile"data-bis.lua"(functions)
    -- etc...

Maybe this would fit your use case?

-- Pierre-Yves