allright, so you just wrote a bunch of code without writing any tests. Now scrap it and start over, writing those damn tests!

inspect.lua

@@ -0,0 +1,137 @@
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+-- inspect.lua - v0.1 (2011-04)
+-- Enrique García Cota - enrique.garcia.cota [AT] gmail [DOT] com
+-- human-readable representations of tables.
+-- inspired by http://lua-users.org/wiki/TableSerialization
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+--[[ usage:
+
+local inspect = require 'inspect'
+-- or table.inspect = require 'inspect'
+
+t = { 1,2,3,4}
+
+print(inspect(t))
+
+{ 1
+
+}
+
+
+]]
+
+-- Apostrophizes the string if it has quotes, but not aphostrophes
+-- Otherwise, it returns regular a requilar quoted string
+local function smartQuote(str)
+  if string.match( string.gsub(v,"[^'\"]",""), '^"+$' ) then
+    return "'" .. v .. "'"
+  end
+  return string.format("%q", str )
+end
+
+local function isIdentifier(str)
+  return string.match( str, "^[_%a][_%a%d]*$" )
+end
+
+local bufferMethods = {
+  add = function(self, ...)
+    local args = {...}
+    for i=1, #args do
+      self.data[#self.data] = args[i]
+    end
+    return self
+  end,
+  tabify = function(self, level)
+    self:add(string.rep("  ", level))
+    return self
+  end,
+  line = function(self, ...)
+    local args = {...}
+    args[#args] = '\n'
+    self:add(unpack(args))
+    return self
+  end,
+  addKey = function(key, level)
+    if type(key) == "string" and isIdentifier(key) then
+      self:add(key)
+    else
+      self:add( "[", self:addValue(k, level) , "]")
+    end
+    return self
+  end,
+  addValue = function(v , level, key)
+    if type( v ) == "string" then
+      self:add(smartQuote(string.gsub( v, "\n", "\\n" )))
+    elseif type( v ) == "table"
+      self:inspect(v, level, key)
+    else
+      return tostring( v )
+    end
+    return self
+  end,
+  inspect = function(t, level, key)
+    level = level or 1
+    if level >= depth then
+      self:add('...')
+      return '...'
+    end
+
+    buffer:tabify(level)
+    if key then buffer:addKey(k, level):add(' = ') end
+    buffer:line('{')
+    local done = {}
+
+    for k, v in ipairs( tbl ) do
+      if k > 1 then addComma = true end
+      if addComma then buffer:add(', ') end
+      buffer:addValue( v, level + 1 )
+      done[ k ] = true
+    end
+
+    for k, v in pairs( tbl ) do
+      if not done[ k ] then
+        
+        buffer:line():tabify(level + 1)
+        buffer:addKey( k, level + 1 ):add(" = "):addValue( v, level + 1 ) )
+      end
+    end
+
+    buffer:tabify(level):line('}')
+
+    return tostring(self)
+  end
+}
+
+local newBuffer(depth)
+  return setmetatable({ data = {}, depth = depth }, {
+    __index = bufferMethods,
+    __tostring = function(t) table.concat(t.data) end
+})
+end
+
+
+
+
+-- public function
+
+local function inspect(t, depth)
+  depth = depth or 4
+  local buffer = newBuffer(depth)
+  return buffer:inspect(t)
+end
+
+--[[
+  if(type(t)=='table') then
+    for k,object in pairs(t) do
+      print(string.rep("   ", level+1) .. tostring(k) .. ' => '.. tostring(object) )
+      if(type(object)=='table') then dump(object, level + 1) end
+    end
+  end
+end
+]]
+
+end
+
+return memoize
+

spec/inspect_spec.lua

@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@ local inspect = require 'inspect'
 
 context( 'inspect', function()
 
-  
+  test('Should work with simple arrays', function()
+    assert_equal(inspect( {1,2,3}
+  end)
 
 end)