Hi lua-l,
I understand that:
> s = 'hello there hi'
> -- this
> s:find('there')
7 11
> -- is the same as
> s.find(s, 'there')
7 11
but what exactly is going on with:
> -- this
> s.find(s, 'there')
7 11
> -- vs
> string.find(s, 'there')
7 11
?
Thanks,
-- John
Since Lua 5.1, strings have a metatable with an __index field referencing the `string` table. Since strings cannot be directly indexed, any attempt to index a string (e.g. `s.find(s, 'there')`) falls back to the __index metamethod, which tells Lua to repeat the indexing in the `string` table. The last example (`string.find(s, 'there')`) simply bypasses that metatable completely and indexes the `string` table directly. Either way, it's the same function: `s.find == string.find`.
