Note: I corrected a few formatting errors on 29 January 2020.

Acknowledgements: These slides are adapted from the slide set 6 for the course Programming in Lua created by Fabio Mascarenhas, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was presented at Nankai University, P. R. China, in July 2013. Although that course used Lua 5.2, I have attempted to update these slides to Lua 5.3.

Advisory: The HTML version of this document may require use of a browser that supports the display of MathML. A good choice as of September 2016 is a recent version of Firefox from Mozilla.

Iterating over ...

• Can collect extra arguments using ... in table constructor

  function add(...)  -- variadic function
      local sum = 0 
      for _, n in ipairs({ ... }) do -- iterate over args
          sum = sum + n 
      end 
      return sum 
  end

• If any extra arguments nil then { ... } not array

• Can use table.pack function to collect arguments in table

  > t = table.pack(1, nil, 3)  -- n set to number of arguments
  > for i = 1, t.n do print(t[i]) end 
  1 
  nil 
  3

Function table.unpack

• table.unpack returns all elements of array in order (called just unpack in Lua 5.1 and earlier)

  > print(table.unpack{ 1, 2, 3, 4 }) 
  1       2       3       4 

• Only guaranteed to work for proper arrays (without holes)

• table.unpack optionally takes starting and ending indices and returns all elements in interval regardless of holes

  > a = { [2] = 5, [5] = 0 } 
  > print(table.unpack(a, 1, 5)) 
  nil     5       nil     nil       0 

“Named” Arguments

• Can simulate named arguments with a record argument

  function rename(args)
      return os.rename(args.old, args.new) 
  end 

• Can omit parentheses if function call has single record argument and uses table constructor {}

  rename{ new = "perm.lua", old = "temp.lua" } 

  Style note: Can put spaces between function and { but better to omit

Lexical Scoping

• Any local variable visible at function definition also visible inside function (if not shadowed)

  function derivative(f, dx) 
      dx = dx or 1e-4 
      return function (x) 
               -- both f and dx visible here! 
               return (f(x + dx) -f(x)) / dx 
             end 
  end 

• Higher-order function is function that takes/returns function(s)

• derivative is higher-order – both takes & returns

  > df = derivative(function (x) return x * x * x end) 
  > print(df(5)) 
  75.001500009932 

Closures (1)

• Function closes over all local variables in its lexical scope

  • These variables neither global nor local to function

  • Non-local variables called upvalues in Lua

  • Function value called closure

• Function can access/modify non-local variables in its closure

  function counter() 
     local n = 0 
     return function () 
              n = n + 1  -- n non-local to returned function
              return n 
            end 
  end 

Closures (2)

    function counter() 
       local n = 0 
       return function () 
                n = n + 1  -- n non-local to returned function
                return n 
              end 
    end

• Each counter() call creates new closure with different n

  > c1 = counter() 
  > c2 = counter() 
  > print(c1()) 
  1 
  > print(c1()) 
  2 
  > print(c2()) 
  1

Closures and Sharing

• Closures close over the variables themselves, not copies

  function counter2() 
      local n = 0
      return function (x)
               n = n + (x or 1) -- same non-local n
               return n 
             end,  -- returns two result values
             function (x) 
               n = n - (x or 1) -- same non-local n
               return n 
             end 
  end 
  
  > inc, dec = counter2()
  > print(inc(5)) 
  5 
  > print(dec(2)) 
  3 
  > print(inc()) 
  4 

• Only access to n through the closures!

Callbacks

• Can implement lightweight callbacks using closures

• Example: table.sort takes callback for optional second argument – “less-than” predicate for elements

  > a = { "Python", "Lua", "C", "JavaScript", "Java", "Lisp" } 
  > table.sort(a, function (a, b) return a > b end) 
  > print_array(a) 
  { Python, Lua, Lisp, JavaScript, Java, C } 

• Common in GUI and other event-driven or asynchronous programs

Functional Programming

• Functional programming typically uses higher-order functions and immutable values

• Lua primarily an imperative language with mutable data structures

• Functional languages commonly use linked lists for sequences

• Lua typically uses arrays for sequences

• Lua can implement common functional programming patterns on arrays by returning modified copies

Lua map Function

• Map functions abstract a common pattern

  • apply a function to each element of a sequence
  • return result in another sequence

• Can implement map function on Lua arrays

  function map(f, l) 
      local nl = {}  -- nl not accessible outside
      for i, x in ipairs(l) do
          nl[i] = f(x)
      end 
      return nl 
  end 
  > a = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 } 
  > b = map(function (x) return x * x end, a) 
  > print_array(b) 
  { 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 } 

Lua filter Function

• Filter functions abstract another common pattern

  • apply a predicate (boolean function) to each element of a sequence
  • return subsequence of elements that satisfy predicate

• Can implement filter function on Lua arrays

  function filter(p, l)
      local nl = {}  -- nl not accessible outside
      for _, x in ipairs(l) do
          if p(x) then
              nl[#nl+1] = x
          end 
      end 
      return nl 
  end
  > a = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 } 
  > b = filter(function (x) return x % 2 == 1 end, a) 
  > print_array(b) 
  { 1, 3, 5 }

Lua Fold Functions (1)

• Fold functions abstract another common pattern

  • reduce a sequence using a binary operation and a seed
  • return result

• Left fold applies operation to seed and first element, then applies operation to result and each subsequent element

• Right fold applies operation to last element and seed, then applies the operation to each previous element and the result

Lua Fold Functions (2)

• Can implement foldl (fold left) and foldr (fold right) on Lua arrays

  function foldl(op, z, l)
      for _, x in ipairs(l) do
          z = op(z, x) -- z not accessible outside
      end 
      return z 
  end 
  
  function foldr(op, z, l) 
      for i = #l, 1, -1 do 
          z = op(l[i], z) -- z not accessible outside
      end 
      return z 
  end 

Curried Functions (1)

• Take a proper prefix of arguments and return function that takes remaining arguments

• Consider curried version of map

  function map2(f)
      return function(l) 
               local nl = {} 
               for i, x in ipairs(l) do 
                 nl[i] = f(x) 
               end
               return nl
             end
  end 

Curried Functions (2)

    function map2(f)
        return function(l) 
                 local nl = {} 
                 for i, x in ipairs(l) do 
                   nl[i] = f(x) 
                 end
                 return nl
               end
    end 

• Currying enables partial evaluation of functions

  > square = map2(function (x) return x * x end) 
  > print_array(square{ 1, 5, 9 }) 
  { 1, 25, 81 } 

Quiz

What is wrong with the function named below, that turns a function f with positional arguments into a function with named arguments? How to fix it?

    function named(f, names)    -- names: names to position
        return function (args)  -- args: names to values
                 local l =
                   map(function (name) return args[name] end, names) 
                 f(table.unpack(l)) 
               end 
    end 

    rename = named(os.rename, { "old", "new" }) 
    rename{ old = "old.txt", new = "new.txt" }

Quiz Solution

    function named(f, names)    -- names: name to position
        return function (args)  -- args: names to values
                 local l = 
                   map(function (name) return args[name] end, names) 
                 f(table.unpack(l)) 
                 -- return f(table.unpack(l,1,#names)) 
               end 
    end 

    rename = named(os.rename, { "old", "new" }) 
    rename{ old = "old.txt", new = "new.txt" }