what does class() actually do?

Questions
1

I’m thinking I might grow a bit of a unit testing framework for Codea as part of my new series of articles (any minute now on http://www.xprogramming.com). So I am looking at how to do reflection kinds of things in Codea/lua. I see that I can learn a lot from the keys in the tables, _G and the table that represents a class.

I’m curious to know, however, what the class() function actually does. Could we see the source for it, and/or an explanation, please?

Thanks!

2

The code used for class() can be found here: http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Talk/discussion/96/class-inheritances/p1

Because Lua is table-based, we get reflection essentially for free, and that capability is there regardless of whether you use some implementation of class-based programming.

In general, Codea’s class() function provides a way to enable inheritance. It’s very no-frills and it doesn’t do much else. It’s worth noting that there are other implementations out there that provide more features (such as https://github.com/kikito/middleclass), and other OO paradigms that can be implemented in Lua (like prototyping for example, which is what JavaScript primarily uses).

3

You can find similar and additional information on the wiki here.

4

Thanks!