Passing an array name to a function, then populating it

Question

I would like to call a function that takes data and then populates an array I name in one of the function parameters. Example of what I'm looking for:

function readSaveFile(saveFileName, arrayName)
    if love.filesystem.exists(saveFileName) then
        arrayName = Tserial.unpack(love.filesystem.read(saveFileName))
    end
end

The issue is that instead of creating an array with the string under arrayName, it replaces the parameter with an array explicitly called "arrayName". Is there any way I could populate the array name specified instead?

Why not just return the data? Variable manipulation like this is usually bad practice, and difficult if the variable isn't in scope and not a global. — Colonel Thirty Two, Oct 10 '14 at 19:10
If you still don't have answer, please post clarification as I don't understand last paragraph of your post. — Oliver, Oct 11 '14 at 16:21

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 10 '14 at 19:24

You can always insert the data into given array (provided it is not nil). For example:

function readSaveFile(saveFile, arrayName)
  if love.filestystem.exists(saveFileName) then
    for k, v in pairs(love.filesystem.read(saveFileName)) do
      arrayName[k] = v
    end
  end
end

Passing an array name to a function, then populating it

1 Answers1