Perpheral method call return userdata

Hi,

The one thing I dislike about the peripheral library is that it is too far away from lua. you can only return/use as args the primitive values number, string, boolean and nil, but not the advanced types like tables or userdata. I know of some alternatives, but they are impractical. The result of this is the need of a separate lua api file to allow convenient use and a large amount of code that wouldn't be needed otherwise. Just one example from my AIP database peripheral:

Actual logical code:

for (Iterator it = recipeList.iterator(); it.hasNext():)/>/> {
    IRecipe recipe = (IRecipe) it.next();
    ItemStack rres = recipe.getRecipeOutput();
    if (stack.isItemEqual(rres)) {
	 Object[] recipeData;
	 boolean shapeless = false;
	 int width = 0;
	 if (recipe instanceof ShapedRecipes) {
	  recipeData = (Object[]) getField(recipe,
	    ShapedRecipes.class, "d");
	  width = ((Integer) getField(recipe,
	    ShapedRecipes.class, "b"));
	 } else {
	  shapeless = true;
	  recipeData = ((List) getField(recipe,
	    ShapelessRecipes.class, "b")).toArray();
	 }

Overhead because of lack of userdata:

StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();
            result.append("{\n");
...
result.append("\t{\n");
	 int j = 0;
	 for (int i = 0; i < recipeData.length; i++) {
	  ItemStack st = (ItemStack) recipeData[i];
	  if (st == null) {
	   result.append("\t\tnil,\n");
	  } else {
	   result.append("\t\tdb.getItem(\"");
	   result.append(getName(st));
	   result.append("\"),\n");
	  }
	 
	  // Adjust shaped recipe outline
	  j++;
	  if (!shapeless &amp;&amp; (j % 3) == width) {
	   while (j % 3 != 0) {
	    result.append("\t\tnil,\n");
	    j++;
	   }
	  }
	 }
	 result.append("\t\tshapeless = ");
	 result.append(shapeless);
	 result.append("\n\t},\n");
    }
   }
   result.append("}");

And some more.

If I would be able to use userdata/tables directly, this would be much shorter. There would also not be much need for a seperate api.

So, to make it short, in my opinion the peripheral.call method should use the luaj values, not the badly masked version.