Re: C API - lua_next traversal of "array" table

[Duane Leslie <parakleta@...>]

> On 19 Aug 2016, at 11:22, ThePhD <jm3689@columbia.edu> wrote:
> 
> I don't suppose sneaking in some kind of ridiculous key name that includes null characters and other things that are vastly improbable for a real Lua user to use (something like "__detail.do.\0.not.touch\xE2\x98\xA2.size") for when I push the table and then pop the table, and using that MAYBE as a shortcut if it's present, and otherwise falling back to iterating until I hit a `nil` might be worth it...?

No, just create a global weak proxy object and store your table lengths in there.  There is never a need to store "magic" data on an allocated object itself.  If you're using C code or the debug library you can put this proxy object in the registry, otherwise you can store it as an upvalue of a closure with wrapped functions, or however you like.

Something like

```lua
get_array_length, set_array_length = (function()
	local proxy = setmetatable({}, { __mode = "k" })
	return function(a) return proxy[a] end,
		function(a,l) proxy[a] = l end
end)()
```

Regards,

Duane.