Miscellaneous

function ULib.explode( separator, str, limit )

Split a string by a separator.

Parameters

Returns

A table of str split by separator, nil and error message otherwise.

Revisions

function ULib.stripComments( str, comment, blockcommentbeg, blockcommentend )

Strips comments from a string

Parameters

Returns

The string with the comments stripped, nil and error otherwise.

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function ULib.makePatternSafe( str )

Makes a string safe for pattern usage, like in string.gsub().  Basically replaces all keywords with % and keyword.

Parameters

Returns

The pattern safe string

function ULib.stripQuotes( s )

Trims leading and tailing quotes from a string

Parameters

Returns

The stripped string

function ULib.unescapeBackslash( s )

Converts ‘\\’ to ‘\’

Parameters

Returns

The converted string

function ULib.splitPort( ipAndPort )

Parameters

Returns

The IP as the first return value, the port as the second return value

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function ULib.splitArgs( args, start_token, end_token )

This is similar to string.Explode( “ “, str ) except that it will also obey quotation marks.

Parameters

Returns

A table containing the individual arguments and a boolean stating whether or not mismatched quotes were found.

Example

ULib.splitArgs( "This is a \"Cool sentence to\" make \"split up\"" )

returns...

{ "This", "is", "a", "Cool sentence to", "make", "split up" }

Notes

• Mismatched quotes will result in having the last quote grouping the remaining input into one argument.
• Arguments outside of quotes are trimmed (via string.Trim), while what’s inside quotes is not trimmed at all.

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function ULib.parseKeyValues( str, convert )

Parses a keyvalue formatted string into a table.

Parameters

Returns

The table, nil and error otherwise.  If you find you’re missing information from the table, the file format might be incorrect.

Example format

test
{
   "howdy"   "bbq"

   foo
   {
       "bar"   "false"
   }

}

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function ULib.makeKeyValues( t, tab, completed )

Makes a key values string from a table.

Parameters

Returns

The string, nil and error otherwise.

Notes

If you use numbers as keys in the table, just the values will be used.

Example table format

{ test = { howdy = "bbq", foo = { bar = "false" } } }

Example return format

test
{
   "howdy"   "bbq"

   foo
   {
       "bar"   "false"
   }

}

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function ULib.toBool( x )

Converts a bool, nil, string, or number to a bool

Parameters

Returns

The bool

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function ULib.findVar( varLocation, rootTable )

Given a string, find a var starting from the global namespace.  This will correctly parse tables.  IE, “ULib.serialize”.

Parameters

Returns

Two values as follows...

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function ULib.setVar( varLocation, varValue, rootTable )

Given a string, find and set a var starting from the global namespace.  This will correctly parse tables.  IE, “ULib.serialize”.

Parameters

Returns

Two values as follows...

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function ULib.throwBadArg( argnum, fnName, expected, data, throwLevel )

Throws an error similar to the lua “bad argument #x to <fn_name> (<type> expected, got <type>).

Parameters

Returns

Never returns, throws an error

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function ULib.checkArg( argnum, fnName, expected, data, throwLevel )

Checks to see if an arg matches what is expected, if not, calls throwBadArg().

Parameters

Returns

Never returns if the data is bad, throws an error.  Otherwise returns nil.

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function ULib.isValidSteamID( steamid )

Checks to see if a given string is a valid steamid.

Parameters

Returns

True if it’s valid, false if not.

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function ULib.isValidIP( ip )

Checks to see if a given string is a valid IPv4 address.

Parameters

Returns

True if it’s valid, false if not.

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function ULib.removeCommentHeader( data, comment_char )

Removes a comment header.

Parameters

Returns

Data without the comment header.

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function ULib.stringTimeToMinutes( str )

Converts a string containing time information to minutes.

Parameters

Returns

The number of minutes represented by the string or nil if it’s unable to parse the string.

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function ULib.secondsToStringTime( secs )

Converts a number of seconds to a string describing the time span.  Note that it rounds up to the minute level (ten seconds will be one minute).

Parameters

Returns

A string representing the length of the span.

Revisions

function inheritsFrom( base_class )

Creates a psudeo-inheritance for lua.  It will search for variables that do not exist in derived ‘classes’ in the parent ‘classes’, among other things explained below.

Parameters

Returns

The table of the derived class.

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Notes

• Adapted with improvements from a lua-users inheritance tutorial http://lua-users.org/wiki/InheritanceTutorial.
• Create using Class:create( ...  ) or Class( ...  ) (equivalent).
• Whatever’s passed in the ‘...’, above, is passed to derived_class:instantiate().  This allows for a ‘constructor’.

See Also

• root_class
• root_class:create
• <root_class:class>
• <root_class:superClass>
• <root_class:instantiate>
• <root_class:isa>

Example

b = inherits_from( nil )
function b:instantiate( ... )
   print( "base", unpack( arg ) )
end

d = inherits_from( b )
function d:instantiate( ... )
   print( "derived", unpack( arg ) )
end

b1 = b( "should be base" )
d1 = d( "should be derived" )
print( "d1 is d?", d1:isa( d ), "is b?", d1:isa( b ) )
print( "b1 is d?", b1:isa( d ), "is b?", b1:isa( b ) )

Output

base    should be base
derived should be derived
d1 is d?        true    is b?   true
b1 is d?        false   is b?   true

This is a utility function used by the metatable __call to resolve Class( ...  ) to Class:create( ...  ).

Parameters

Returns

The ‘class instance’.

Revisions

function root_class:create( ... )

This is used to create new ‘class instances’.

Parameters

Revisions