counting number of strings in a table.

How would you go about counting how many things are in a table so you can the code to do math with it later.

an example of what I'm trying to do is:

local table = {"message 1", "message 2", "message 3"}
tablemath = table entries + 2

amountOfTableEntries = table.getn(myTable)

(I read somewhere that you can also use #myTable instead of table.getn)

there are multiple ways you can do this, each with a different result, the simplest to use however is the # symbol which is the same as table.getn

local t = {"a", "b", "c"}
print( #t ) --# will output 3

also it is advised that you be careful with your variable naming, for example you have a table named 'table' this will override the table API and could cause problems in the future, especially when you attempt to use the functions that reside in the table.

#myTable and table.getn(myTable) are not the same - for one thing, the former executes much faster, and for another, the two options won't always return the same answer.

#myTable returns the highest index before encountering one set to a nil value.

table.getn() will usually return the highest index "full stop", but if the table was constructed in a certain way, it may still return a lower index than expected.

table.maxn() is your best bet if you need reliability.

Note that none of the above three methods are any good for counting non-numeric keys - for those you'd want to do it manually with a pairs loop, eg:

local myTable = {["key1"] = "moo", ["key2"] = "moo2", "this last string will go against numeric index 1"}

local keys = 0

for key, value in pairs(myTable) do
  keys = keys + 1
end

print(keys) --> 3

ok thanks for your help. I was thinking about the keys = keys + 1 way but wasn't sure if tehre were simplier ways.