new to cc and could use some help with functions

So I tried to use CC today in my skyfactory 2.5 world and it looked pretty cool, so I read some more about it and i wanted to see if i could get basic information from my Immersive Engineering machines. So i was reading through the Engineer's manual and found that I can but I don't know how to use the GetInputFluidTanks() function.

all help is appreciated! :D/>

<shameless self promotion> I wrote a great tutorial on working with peripherals from other mods.

It's not specific to your usage case, but should be enough to get you started and will run you through the steps to giving us the information we need to help.

KingofGamesYami, on 11 December 2016 - 03:06 PM said:

<shameless self promotion> I wrote a great tutorial on working with peripherals from other mods.

It's not specific to your usage case, but should be enough to get you started and will run you through the steps to giving us the information we need to help.

yeah I have looked over that thread before I came to the forums and still had the same problem, it just says temp:1 attempted to call nil

Attempt to call nil is covered in the sticky post:
http://www.computercraft.info/forums2/index.php?/topic/14531-read-this-post-before-asking-questions/page__pid__137905#entry137905

Specifically, you should remember that function names are case sensitive. Without seeing any of your code, it is difficult to comment on what function doesn't exist.

the code is very simple.

function stats = peripherals.getInputFluidTanks()
print("stats")

and in the engineer's manual it says the method name right there and I have looked over it enough times to know im getting the caps right

That code won't work at all. Care to correct it?

Edit:

Gah, thought you were someone else offering an "example".

You meant to do something like this:

local myPeripheral = peripheral.wrap("<tankSide>")    --# Wrap peripheral.
stats = myPeripheral.getInputFluidTanks()             --# Call wrapped peripheral's function, assign result to variable.
print(stats)                                          --# Print variable's contents.

I think you could fix your problem by reading the PIL, for example https://www.lua.org/pil/4.1.html
You could also find lua examples on the forums here, and elsewhere. Basically, the problem is that the code you showed has invalid syntax in it.

Before using a peripheral, you have to tell the program where it is in relation to the computer.

Here's a basic example writing some text to a monitor:

local mon = peripheral.wrap( "right" ) --# the monitor is assumed to be to the right of the computer
mon.write( "Hello World!" )

ok ill try that when i get home, im at school rn

Ok, I think i'm on the right track, it doesn't throw an error but, it doesn't display anything at all…
here is my code:

local refinery = peripheral.wrap("back")
refinery.getInputFluidTanks()

When you call refinery.getInputFluidTanks(), it returns a value, but if you want something done with that value then you need to specify. Eg:

print(refinery.getInputFluidTanks())

It may pay to read up on functions and assignments.

when i run that code it just prints a (what looks to be)random string of characters

It'd be much more helpful if you told us what they are.

But let's assume you're told it's a table, and say to try it like this:

print( textutils.serialise( refinery.getInputFluidTanks() ) )

http://lua-users.org/wiki/TablesTutorial

http://www.computercraft.info/wiki/Textutils.serialize