ocornoc/luadcpy

Deep copy implementation functions in Lua.

Overview

The dcpy Lua (5.1) library is a library containing functions for customizable deep copying of tables. A table of 3 functions is returned when requiring this file.

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• basic( t )

This function is a basic deep copy. The original metatables are applied to values and keys remain their originals whilst values are recursively deep copied. This function is defined as

basic = create{
	["recursive"] = true,
	["copymts"] = true,
	["inckeys"] = false,
	["incmts"] = false
}

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• shallow( t )

This function is a basic shallow copy. The original metatable is not applied to values and keys remain their originals whilst values are non-recursively copied. This function is defined as

shallow = create{
	["recursive"] = false,
	["copymts"] = false,
	["inckeys"] = false,
	["incmts"] = false
}

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• create( t )

This function creates and returns copying functions. The input table t determines what copy function is returned. All fields are treated as booleans. The format for the input table is as follows:

Key	Description
"recursive"	Determines whether the function is recursive or not.
"copymts"	Determines if table values, when copied, have their metatables copied to them, too. Without "incmts" being true, this "copy" is actually just the original metatable.
"inckeys"	Determines whether keys are included in the copying process. If they are, keys are treated just as values are and are copied in the same way.
"incmts"	Determines whether metatables, when copied, use the original (when == false) or a copy (when == true). Copied metatables are copied in the same way as values.