On Thu, Jan 10, 2019 at 12:11 PM Henning Hraban Ramm <texml@fiee.net> wrote:

a Lua pairs table, the order can be arbitrary.

sure , the *default* __pairs gives pseudo-arbitrary order, but you can always use metatable:

-- test.lua

local _c,_t=0,{}

local t = {}

setmetatable(t, {

__newindex = function(tbl, k, v)

_c=_c+1

_t[_c]=k

rawset(tbl, k, v)

end,

__pairs = function(tbl)

local i = 1

return function(tbl,k)

k = _t[i]

i=i+1

return k,tbl[k]

end, tbl,nil

end,

})

t['a']= 'aaa'

t['3a']= '3aa'

t['b']= 'baa'

t['2b']= '2ba'

t['c']= 'caa'

t['2c']= '2ca'

t['d']= 'daa'

t['2d']= '2da'

t['e']= 'eaa'

t['2e']= '2ea'

for k,v in pairs(t) do print(k,v) end

$ mtxrun --script test.lua

a aaa

3a 3aa

b baa

2b 2ba

c caa

2c 2ca

d daa

2d 2da

e eaa

2e 2ea

luigi