Tables

In the context of Luau and Roblox, tables are a data structure that can store multiple values of any type that isn’t nil, including booleans, numbers, strings, functions, and other tables.

Syntax

The syntax for an empty table is:

local table = {}

Tables can be defined using curly braces ({}). The local keyword is primarily used to declare local variables. It is not used specifically for instantiating tables. In order to instantiate a table with elements the syntax will look something like this:

local table = {"amy", "john", "bob"}

The above example is instantiated like an array, but as mentioned above, table data types are capable of storing any form of data other than nil. Here is another example:

local profile = {"john",  24, "Atlanta",  false}

Not only can tables be used as arrays, but you can even use them as dictionaries. Here is an example of a table in the form of a dictionary with an array data type included:

local profile = {
    username = "john_doe",
    level = 12,
    experience = 500,
    items = {"sword", "shield", "knife", "helmet"},
}

Accessing Items

If a given table is set up like an array, an important thing to note is that the index begins at 1 rather than at 0 as it is for other languages. Let’s use this table as an example:

 items = {"sword", "shield", "knife", "helmet"}

To print the first item of the table to the console, the call will look like this:

print(items[1])

Calling items from a table when it’s formatted like a dictionary is a little different. The value of items can be obtained by the keys. Below is an example of how to obtain the username value from the profile table.

-- Creating the profile table
local profile = {
    username = "john_doe",
    level = 12,
    experience = 500,
    items = {"sword", "shield", "knife", "helmet"},
}

-- Printing the username in the table
print(profile.username)

Table Functions

The following functions are used to work with tables: