Reference User Input to Table

Looked around and can't seem to find anything on this. I think it might be easier than I figure it is, but I'm wanting to take what a user inputs and references it towards a table, then if the reference matches, do some shit. Here's my code in question. And yes I know what I put won't work, I was just trying different ways I could think of and that was the last thing I tried.

responseYes = { "y", "ye", "yes", "Y", "Ye", "Yes", "YE", "YEs", "YES" }
responseNo = { "n", "no", "N", "No", "NO" }
serverPort = ""
local function startup()
shell.run("clear")
print("Initiating Startup Procedure...")

-- Rednet Open Ports Probing
local modemSide
for _,side in ipairs(rs.getSides()) do
  if peripheral.getType(side) == "modem" then
   modemSide = side
   print("Modem Detected on the "..modemSide..".")
   print("Is this the correct Modem? \n")
   userInput = io.read()
  
   if userInput == responseYes then
	print("derp")
   elseif userInput == responseNo then
	print("herp")
   else
	print("failed")
   end
  end
end
end
startup()

What you're trying to do is similar to what can be done in other languages, such as C#:

if (responseYes.Contains(userInput)) 
    //herp
else if (responseNo.Contains(userInput))
    //derp
else
    //failed

Unfortunately, Lua does not have a Contains() function; you'll have to write that yourself, iterating through every item in the table and returning a Boolean. I recommend it; it's a handy function I use often.

Bah, if that's the case then I guess I'll have to figure out how to do that then. My programming is scratchy in some areas as I haven't learned by the book. It'll take some research I suppose.

There is a much easier way of doing it, much less resource intensive aswell

local tTable = {}
local input = read()
if tTable[input] then
  --user input matched a table entry
else
  --user input did not match any table entry
end

to expand on what CometWolf said you can make your job even easier by using string.lower which makes a provided string lowercase; this means you need less values in the tables.

Working code example (CometWolf was missing some important stuff in the table creation for you)

local yes = {["yes"] = true; ["y"] = true; ["yep"] = true; ["yeah"] = true; ["yeh"] = true;}
local no = {["no"] = true; ["n"] = true; ["nope"] = true; ["nah"] = true}

local input = string.lower(read())

if yes[input] then
  --# if yes
elseif no[input] then
  --# if no
else
  --# invalid
end

theoriginalbit, on 06 March 2014 - 02:46 PM said:

Awesome, that works like a charm.

My new working code:

local responseYes = { ["yes"] = true; ["y"] = true; ["yep"] = true; ["yeah"] = true; ["yeh"] = true; }
local responseNo = { ["no"] = true; ["n"] = true; ["nope"] = true; ["niet"] = true; }
serverPort = ""
local function startup()
shell.run("clear")
print("Initiating Startup Procedure...")

-- Rednet Open Ports Probing
local modemSide
for _,side in ipairs(rs.getSides()) do
  if peripheral.getType(side) == "modem" then
   modemSide = side
   print("Modem Detected on the "..modemSide..".")
   print("Is this the correct Modem? \n")
   local userInput = string.lower(read())
  
   if responseYes[userInput] then
    print("derp")
   elseif responseNo[userInput] then
    print("herp")
   else
    print("failed")
   end
  end
end
end
startup()

Now I can continue on with it. Thank you. :D/>

Another trick if you really want to trim things down; if the user input started with a "y", take it as a positive response, or if it started with an "n" treat it as negative.

local input = string.lower(string.sub(read(),1,1))

if input == "y" then
  --# if yes
elseif input == "n" then
  --# if no
else
  --# invalid
end

Somewhat cheating in that there may be words out there that start with "y" that're negative, or words that start with "n" that're positive. I've never been able to think of any though, and doubt they'd see common enough usage to worry about. ;)/>

Either way, definitely read through this for more fun with string manipulation.