Best way to find out all of the properties of MOAI classes?

[kleibrook]

I'm fairly new to both lua and moai, so my apologies if i'm overlooking something obvious. Aside from the samples, or reading the MOAI host code, is there a way for me to discover all of the properties that MOAI classes have?

For example I can see from the input examples that MOAIInputMgr has a device property, and whatever that is has a touch property, but referring to the MOAIInputMgr SDK documentation shows no members.

What is the expected/easiest way for me to discover properties which I don't notice (or aren't demonstrated) in the samples and otherwise don't know exist?

Thanks

[nosheet]

This is actually a good question. Obviously, we can try to look for things in documentation, but very often in any SDK there are hidden gems not covered by documentation.
Some of MOAI Classes are represented as Lua tables, such as MOAIProp, and they can simply be iterated as:

Code: Select all

1. for k,v in pairs( MOAIProp ) do


2. print (k,v)


3. end

Others, such as MOAIInputMgr are user data, and I am not sure if there is any way to access the user data members from Lua, so the best shot would be to download MOAI source and look in the proper source file.

[kleibrook]

Looks like somebody cleaned up the post causing the server error. Thanks for the tip, nosheet

[ibisum]

I use table.show():

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1.  


2.  


3.  


4. --[[


5.    Author: Julio Manuel Fernandez-Diaz


6.    Date:   January 12, 2007


7.    (For Lua 5.1)


8.    


9.    Modified slightly by RiciLake to avoid the unnecessary table traversal in tablecount()


10.  


11.    Formats tables with cycles recursively to any depth.


12.    The output is returned as a string.


13.    References to other tables are shown as values.


14.    Self references are indicated.


15.  


16.    The string returned is "Lua code", which can be procesed


17.    (in the case in which indent is composed by spaces or "--").


18.    Userdata and function keys and values are shown as strings,


19.    which logically are exactly not equivalent to the original code.


20.  


21.    This routine can serve for pretty formating tables with


22.    proper indentations, apart from printing them:


23.  


24.       print(table.show(t, "t"))   -- a typical use


25.    


26.    Heavily based on "Saving tables with cycles", PIL2, p. 113.


27.  


28.    Arguments:


29.       t is the table.


30.       name is the name of the table (optional)


31.       indent is a first indentation (optional).


32. --]]


33. function table.show(t, name, indent)


34.    local cart     -- a container


35.    local autoref  -- for self references


36.  


37.    --[[ counts the number of elements in a table


38.    local function tablecount(t)


39.       local n = 0


40.       for _, _ in pairs(t) do n = n+1 end


41.       return n


42.    end


43.    ]]


44.    -- (RiciLake) returns true if the table is empty


45.    local function isemptytable(t) return next(t) == nil end


46.  


47.    local function basicSerialize (o)


48.       local so = tostring(o)


49.       if type(o) == "function" then


50.          local info = debug.getinfo(o, "S")


51.          -- info.name is nil because o is not a calling level


52.          if info.what == "C" then


53.             return string.format("%q", so .. ", C function")


54.          else


55.             -- the information is defined through lines


56.             return string.format("%q", so .. ", defined in (" ..


57.                 info.linedefined .. "-" .. info.lastlinedefined ..


58.                 ")" .. info.source)


59.          end


60.       elseif type(o) == "number" or type(o) == "boolean" then


61.          return so


62.       else


63.          return string.format("%q", so)


64.       end


65.    end


66.  


67.    local function addtocart (value, name, indent, saved, field)


68.       indent = indent or ""


69.       saved = saved or {}


70.       field = field or name


71.  


72.       cart = cart .. indent .. field


73.  


74.       if type(value) ~= "table" then


75.          cart = cart .. " = " .. basicSerialize(value) .. ";\n"


76.       else


77.          if saved[value] then


78.             cart = cart .. " = {}; -- " .. saved[value]


79.                         .. " (self reference)\n"


80.             autoref = autoref ..  name .. " = " .. saved[value] .. ";\n"


81.          else


82.             saved[value] = name


83.             --if tablecount(value) == 0 then


84.             if isemptytable(value) then


85.                cart = cart .. " = {};\n"


86.             else


87.                cart = cart .. " = {\n"


88.                for k, v in pairs(value) do


89.                   k = basicSerialize(k)


90.                   local fname = string.format("%s[%s]", name, k)


91.                   field = string.format("[%s]", k)


92.                   -- three spaces between levels


93.                   addtocart(v, fname, indent .. "   ", saved, field)


94.                end


95.                cart = cart .. indent .. "};\n"


96.             end


97.          end


98.       end


99.    end


100.  


101.    name = name or "__unnamed__"


102.    if type(t) ~= "table" then


103.       return name .. " = " .. basicSerialize(t)


104.    end


105.    cart, autoref = "", ""


106.    addtocart(t, name, indent)


107.    return cart .. autoref


108. end


109.  


110.  

.. then:

Code: Select all

1.  


2.     print(table.show(MOAIEnvironment, "MOAIEnvironment")) -- dumps the table


3.  

It often reveals lots of interesting things .. also good to use on the _gui table of MOAIGUI, for example, when trying to determine widget names and hierarchies .. At some point I'd like to write a general-purpose table navigator using MOAI features ..