When people first start programming, they quickly learn that writing all of their code in one large chunk becomes difficult to manage. As such, modern programming languages like Lua support a concept called functions which allow the programmer to direct parts of the program to perform a specific task. In addition to writing clean, organized code, functions are the foundation behind the concept of DRY or
If you find yourself writing the same basic block of code multiple times, with only minor differences in each block, using a function is the best solution. Also, any time you want to do the same thing multiple times, a function is the best approach.
Let’s consider a scenario where we only need to change a small portion of code around a single data value:
local tanx = math.abs( 12 ) / math.abs( 15 ) local atanx = math.atan( tanx ) -- Result in radians local angle = atanx * 180 / math.pi -- Converted to degrees print( angle ) tanx = math.abs( 34 ) / math.abs( -16 ) atanx = math.atan( tanx ) -- Result in radians angle = atanx * 180 / math.pi -- Converted to degrees print( angle ) tanx = math.abs( 80 ) / math.abs( -4 ) atanx = math.atan( tanx ) -- Result in radians angle = atanx * 180 / math.pi -- Converted to degrees print( angle )
In this block, we are simply calculating an angle based on the width and height of a triangle. As you can see, this code quickly becomes repetitive — we are basically doing the exact same thing several times over, changing only the parameters of the triangle each time. This is a prime example of where a function is useful, so let’s look at a
local function calculateAngle( sideA, sideB )
local tanx = math.abs( sideB ) / math.abs( sideA )
local atanx = math.atan( tanx ) -- Result in radians
local angle = atanx * 180 / math.pi -- Converted to degrees
return angle
end
print( calculateAngle( 15, 12 ) )
print( calculateAngle( -16, 34 ) )
print( calculateAngle( -4, 80 ) )
Notice that we have written the basic code just once, but we use variables sideA and sideB)return value from the calculateAngle() function three times, using number values similar to the original version (the usage of return will be discussed in detail below).
Data is sent to functions as parameters, or “arguments” as some developers refer to them. These are passed to the function as a ()), for example:
local picWidth = 32 local pic = display.newImageRect( "pic.png", picWidth, 64 )
In this example, we call a common Solar2D function, display.newImageRect(), and pass to it:
"pic.png").picWidth).64).Spacing between the commas isn’t required, but string values must be passed within quotes while variables and numbers must be passed without quotes. Other items can be passed as well, including tables of data and even other functions. Essentially, any valid Lua data type can be passed to a Lua function.
Let’s look at some more examples:
local result = myFunction( "test" )
local myString = "test" local result = myFunction( myString )
These two cases are identical in behavior, except that, in the second version, the sole parameter is myString.
Here’s another equivalent set which passes in a table:
local result = myFunction( { 1, 2, 3 } )
local myTable = { 1, 2, 3 }
local result = myFunction( myTable )
local myTable = {}
myTable[1] = 1
myTable[2] = 2
myTable[3] = 3
local result = myFunction( myTable )
Here, you can see that the exact same result — a table containing a sequence of values — is passed to myFunction(). How you choose to pass data in is entirely up to you, and it may simply depend on the amount of flexibility you need.
As illustrated so far, functions can accept parameters of one data type or a mix of data types. As a developer, it’s your responsibility to ensure that the values passed to your function are what you expect them to be — don’t be careless and pass a string when you intend it to be a number or
Parameter names should be whatever makes sense to you — they are not required to be anything in particular. However, if you don’t use logical and complete names, someone inspecting your code later (or even you!) might have trouble understanding what values the function is expecting. Let’s inspect a touch handling function as an example:
local function handleTouch( event )
if ( event.phase == "ended" ) then
-- Handle touch lifting off screen
end
return true
end
This function requires just a single parameter, event, which is a Lua table that represents the “event” of the user touching the screen. Assuming this function is used as a listener function via a command like Runtime:addEventListener( "touch", handleTouch )
Note that some programmers may write the same function as follows:
local function handleTouch( e )
if ( e.phase == "ended" ) then
-- Handle touch lifting off screen
end
return true
end
These functions are identical in behavior except that the parameter name event has been shortened to e. While e isn’t a descriptive name, it demonstrates that the name itself doesn’t matter — however, it’s good practice to name parameters sensibly so you don’t forget the purpose sometime in the future.
Frequently, it’s necessary to retrieve data from a function. In the first example of this tutorial, we needed to get the angle value based on the parameters we passed in. Fortunately, this is easily accomplished via the simple return command, followed by the values to return:
local function calculateAngle( sideA, sideB )
local tanx = math.abs( sideB ) / math.abs( sideA )
local atanx = math.atan( tanx ) -- Result in radians
local angle = atanx * 180 / math.pi -- Converted to degrees
return angle
end
Unlike most other programming languages, Lua allows a function to return multiple values (other languages usually return just one). If you need to return multiple values from a Lua function, just provide a return and, when you call the function, provide unique variables for each value returned. Compare the difference:
local function returnOneNumber()
return 10
end
local value = returnOneNumber()
local function returnTwoNumbers()
return 10, 20
end
local value1, value2 = returnTwoNumbers()
Notice that because the second function returns two values, it logically needs two variables, value1 and value2, to store the returned values.
This multiple return concept can be directly observed via the Solar2D API myObject:getLinearVelocity(), a physics function which retrieves the current linear velocity of a physical object. Because a physical linear velocity always consists of two velocity values, horizontal (x) and vertical (y), this function is typically called like this:
local linearVelocityX, linearVelocityY = myObject:getLinearVelocity()
Note, however, that you don’t need to store all returned values as separate variables. For example, if you only care about the linear x velocity of the physical object, just store that value and the linear y value will be discarded:
local linearVelocityX = myObject:getLinearVelocity()
Sometimes a function may need to accept a variable number of parameters. Lua accommodates for this with the variable parameter ... syntax. Consider the following function which takes an unspecified amount of numerical arguments and adds them together into one sum:
local function addNumbers( ... )
local sum = 0
for i = 1,#arg do
sum = sum + arg[i]
end
return sum
end
local finalSum = addNumbers( 1, 12, 4, 5, 2 )
print( finalSum )
Here, notice how Lua uses three consecutive periods (...) to indicate a varying number of arguments and, once inside the function, this produces a table called arg which is a
local function addNumbers( ... )
local sum = 0
for i = 1,#arg do
sum = sum + arg[i]
end
return sum
end
Hopefully this tutorial has helped you understand the nature of functions, their considerable usefulness, how to pass data of different types to functions, and how to retrieve the information you need. Remember that clean coding and smart use of functions will improve the structure and performance of your app, as well as make the program code easier to understand.