unpack()

Type Function
Library (globals)
Return value Elements of given table between i and j
Revision Current Public Release (2013.1076)
Keywords unpack, global
Sample code none
See also

Overview

Returns the elements from the given table. This function is equivalent to the following:

return list[i], list[i+1], ..., list[j]

The difference is that the above code can be written only for a fixed number of elements. By default, i is 1 and j is the length of the list, as defined by the length operator (#).

Syntax

unpack( list [, i [, j ]] )
list (required)

Table. The table whose elements will be unpacked.

i (optional)

Number. The index of the table element at which the function will begin unpacking values. Default: 1.

j (optional)

Number. The index of the table element at which the function will stop unpacking values. Default: length of the given table provided by the length (#) operator.

Example

local t = 
{
    [1] = "first",
    [2] = "second",
    [3] = "third",
    [4] = "fourth",
    [5] = "fifth"
}

local two, three, four = unpack( t, 2, 4 )

print( two, three, four )

-- OUTPUT: second  third  fourth