unpack()

Type Function
Library (globals)
Return value (elements of given table between i and j)
Revision 2017.3060
Keywords unpack, global

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 is 1.

j (optional)

Number. The index of the table element at which the function will stop unpacking values. Default is the 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