Codectionary / Developer documentation / Lua

Lua Tables

Tables are Lua’s main compound data structure. They can act as arrays, dictionaries, objects, and namespaces; indexes begin at 1 by convention for sequences.

Syntax

local tags = { "lua", "game" }
local user = { name = "Ada" }

Examples

Reading a table

A small, runnable example of this syntax.

local user = { name = "Ada", active = true }
local tags = { "lua", "game" }

print(user.name)
print(tags[1])

Best practices

  • Use array-style tables for ordered sequences and named keys for records; do not rely on length behavior for tables with holes.
  • Keep examples small while learning, then combine the idea with a real project.

At a glance

Purpose
Lightweight scripting and embedding
File extension
.lua
Runs in
Lua interpreter or a host application
Usually used with
Host APIs and Lua modules

Specifications & further reading

Related Lua documentation