Lua: How to find out if an element is a table instead of a string/number?

Question

As the title says, what function or check can I do to find out if a lua element is a table or not?

local elem = {['1'] = test, ['2'] = testtwo}
if (elem is table?) // <== should return true

Answer 1

print(type(elem)) -->table

the type function in Lua returns what datatype it's first parameter is (string)

Answer 2

In the context of the original question,

local elem = {['1'] = test, ['2'] = testtwo}
if (type(elem) == "table") then
  -- do stuff
else
  -- do other stuff instead
end

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

You may find this helps readability:

local function istable(t) return type(t) == 'table' end

Answer 4

Use type():

local elem = {1,2,3}
print(type(elem) == "table")
-- true