Re: Modules that are functions

[Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@...>]

On Thursday, November 21, 2013, Coda Highland  wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 2:58 PM, Petite Abeille
> <petite.abeille@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Nov 21, 2013, at 11:32 PM, Kevin Martin <kev82@khn.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> 2) I can guarantee that at some point in the future, that module which currently only has one function will need another, and the rewrite will be horrific if not returning a table.
> >
> > Meh… behold the functable:
> >
> > local aFunction = function() return 'Yeah!' end
> > debug.setmetatable( aFunction, { __index = function( self, aKey ) return aKey end } )
> >
> > print( aFunction() )
> > print( aFunction.foo )
> > print( aFunction.bar )
> > print( aFunction.baz )
> >
>
> Or of course go the other way around and return a table that's also
> callable, which is probably preferable for reflection.
>
> /s/ Adam

++ for functable. You can pack version information into its fields. 

If the function is also a field, the user can avoid the speed penalty, right from require:

 " mymod = require("mymod").new"

There is no reason that you can't just do a function, though.  If you're redistributing the module, a table is expect, which feels more sorted out.