Creating a Table

Part of the Fundamentals section of Coddy's Lua journey — lesson 57 of 90.

In Lua, tables are created using curly braces {}.

The simplest table you can create is an empty one:

local myTable = {}

You can also create a table that already contains values by placing them inside the curly braces, separated by commas:

local numbers = {10, 25, 30}
local names = {"Alice", "Bob", "Charlie"}

When you create a table with values like this, Lua automatically assigns each value a numeric position starting from 1. So in the numbers table above, 10 is at position 1, 25 is at position 2, and 30 is at position 3.

Challenge

Easy

Create a game inventory system by building a table to store different weapon types. Declare a variable named weapons and assign it a table containing exactly three string values: "sword", "bow", and "staff". After creating the table, print the entire table to display your weapon collection (given).

Cheat sheet

Tables in Lua are created using curly braces {}.

Create an empty table:

local myTable = {}

Create a table with values (separated by commas):

local numbers = {10, 25, 30}
local names = {"Alice", "Bob", "Charlie"}

Lua automatically assigns numeric positions starting from 1 to values in tables.

Try it yourself

-- TODO: Write your code here

-- Print the weapons table - DONT MODIFY
print(table.concat(weapons, "\t"))

Test yourself

This lesson includes a short quiz. Start the lesson to answer it and track your progress.

All lessons in Fundamentals

1Introduction

The Language Hello World!Comments

4Operators 2 Relational & Logic

Equality Operators Relational Operators The 'and' Operator The 'or' Operator The 'not' Operator Short-Circuit Evaluation Truthy and Falsy Values Recap - Simple Logic

7Basic Conditional Logic

The if-then Statement The if-then-else Statement The elseif Statement Recap - Treasure Chest

10Tables Part 1: List-Style

What is a Table?Creating a TableAccessing Elements by Index Modifying Elements by Index The Length Operator '#'table.insert()table.remove()Recap - Manage Party Members

13Project: Simple Potion Shop

Project Setup Adding a Potion

Displaying the Inventory

Calculating Total Stock Value

Finding a Specific Potion

Selling a Potion

3Operators 1 Arithmetic & Conc

Arithmetic Operators Modulo Operator Exponentiation Operator String Concatenation Operator Precedence Recap - Simple Calculations

6Project: Character Stats Disp

Welcome Message Declare Character Stats

Display Basic Stats

Add a Boolean Flag

Final Summary

9Functions Basics

Declaring a Function Calling a Function Functions with Parameters Functions with Multiple Params The 'return' Statement Recap - Area Calculator

12Loops Basics

The while Loop The repeat-until Loop The Numeric for Loop for Loop with a Step The 'break' Statement Recap - Countdown

15Final Challenges

Recap - Player Turn Recap - Simple Database Recap - Sum of Even Numbers