@ -10,6 +10,11 @@ The objective here is human understanding (i.e. for debugging), not serializatio
Examples of use
===============
`inspect` has the following declaration: `str = inspect(value, <options>)`.
`value` can be any Lua value. `inspect` transforms simple types (like strings or numbers) into strings. Tables, on the other
hand, are rendered in a way a human can undersand.
"Array-like" tables are rendered horizontally:
inspect({1,2,3,4}) == "{ 1, 2, 3, 4 }"
@ -38,27 +43,7 @@ Tables can be nested, and will be indented with two spaces per level.
}
}]]
`inspect`'s second parameter allows controlling the maximum depth that will be printed out. When the max depth is reached, it'll just return `{...}`:
local t5 = {a = {b = {c = {d = {e = 5}}}}}
inspect(t5, 4) == [[{
a = {
b = {
c = {
d = {...}
}
}
}
}]]
inspect(t5, 2) == [[{
a = {
b = {...}
}
}]])
Functions, userdata and threads are simply rendered as `<function x>`, `<userdata x>` and `<thread x>` respectively:
Functions, userdata and any other custom types from Luajit are simply as `<function x>`, `<userdata x>`, etc.:
inspect({ f = print, ud = some_user_data, thread = a_thread} ) == [[{
f = <function1>,
@ -84,6 +69,50 @@ If the table has a metatable, inspect will include it at the end, in a special f
Notice that since both `a` appears more than once in the expression, it is prefixed by `<1>` and replaced by `<table 1>` every time it appears later on.
### options.depth
`inspect`'s second parameter allows controlling the maximum depth that will be printed out. When the max depth is reached, it'll just return `{...}`:
local t5 = {a = {b = {c = {d = {e = 5}}}}}
inspect(t5, {depth = 4}) == [[{
a = {
b = {
c = {
d = {...}
}
}
}
}]]
inspect(t5, {depth = 2}) == [[{
a = {
b = {...}
}
}]])
`options.depth` defaults to infinite (`math.huge`).
### options.filter
Sometimes it might be convenient to "filter out" some parts of the output. The `options.filter` option can do that.
`options.filter` accepts a table of values. Any value on that table will be rendered as `<filtered>`. This is useful for hiding things like long complex tables that are not interesting for the task at hand, for example an unuseful complex metatable.
local person = {name = 'peter'}
setmetatable(person, complex_mt)
inspect(x, {filter = {complex_mt}}) == [[{
name = "peter",
<metatable> = <filtered>
}]]
`options.filter` can also be a function. The function must return true for the values that must be filtered out.
local isEvenNumber = function(x) return type(x) == 'number' and x % 2 == 0 end