[Lua][Question] Parsing user input into three parts

In my program, the user can enter a text. That text will have three parts, eg. "asd meme qwerty". How can i separate each part and store them into different variables? The spaces will of course have to be left out.

You could do this… but that would involve… just look

local msg = {}
msg.part1 = io.read()
msg.part2 = io.read()
msg.part3 = io.read()
-- and so on if you need more than 3 parts
textutils.serialize(msg)

The textutils.serialize(msg) combines everything. When you want to uncombine everything do this…

textutils.unserialize(msg)
-- Now you have variables part1, part2, and so on

You can split the user input by creating your own split function. Here is one I made that splits where it finds a comma, you can modify it rather easily to split at the spaces.

function pattern(text,pattern,start)
return string.sub(text,string.find(text,pattern,start)) end

function split(string)
local sep = {}
local done = false
local count,prevVars,tmp = 0,0,0
string = string..",|"
while not done do
  count = count + 1
  tmp = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count+prevVars)
  if tmp == "|" then done = true return sep end
  prevVars = prevVars + tmp:len()
  table.insert(sep,count,tmp)
end
return sep
end

I would modify it but I have to go to work now and wont be able to test it. Figured I would give you something to play with.

You will want to capture the output of the function in a table so..

local tOutput = {}

write ("Enter Input")
local input = read()
tOutput = split(input)

luanub, on 20 June 2012 - 11:28 PM said:

You can split the user input by creating your own split function. Here is one I made that splits where it finds a comma, you can modify it rather easily to split at the spaces.

function pattern(text,pattern,start)
return string.sub(text,string.find(text,pattern,start)) end

function split(string)
local sep = {}
local done = false
local count,prevVars,tmp = 0,0,0
string = string..",|"
while not done do
  count = count + 1
  tmp = pattern(string,"[^,]+",count+prevVars)
  if tmp == "|" then done = true return sep end
  prevVars = prevVars + tmp:len()
  table.insert(sep,count,tmp)
end
return sep
end

I would modify it but I have to go to work now and wont be able to test it. Figured I would give you something to play with.

You will want to capture the output of the function in a table so..

local tOutput = {}

write ("Enter Input")
local input = read()
tOutput = split(input)

How can i swap the ',' to a space? I cant really understand the pattern function.

You can use this:

local tWords = {}
for match in string.gmatch(userInput, "[^ t]+") do
  table.insert( tWords, match )
end

it would separate the words and put them in a table, then you can access them like:

print(tWords[1], ", ", tWords[2])

And it works for any number of words.

MysticT, on 20 June 2012 - 11:55 PM said:

You can use this:

local tWords = {}
for match in string.gmatch(userInput, "[^ t]+") do
  table.insert( tWords, match )
end

it would separate the words and put them in a table, then you can access them like:

print(tWords[1], ", ", tWords[2])

And it works for any number of words.

Thanks, this works :P/>/>