However, since x[1] is empty, should it be false and directly terminate the loop?
You never allocate anything. The garbage collector runs when you allocate objects. The contents of x[1] are never collected, and the loop continues forever.
The following program prints '47' on my system, so it took 47 iterations before the garbage collector removed x[1].
local x = setmetatable({{}}, {__mode = "v" })
local A = 0
while x[1] do
local _ = {}
A = A + 1
end
print(A)
The difference is the "local _ = {}" statement which allocates a table every iteration which also runs the GC.
Gé
