Methods
Methods are unique functions which belong to a particular object or can be custom made. They are a major focus of Roblox Lua. Some common examples of methods include 'Destroy()', 'Clone()', and 'FindFirstChild()'. You can find a full list of methods here.
A method acts like a function stored within an object. The method itself is accessed in the same way a function in a table is accessed. However, a special property of methods changes how they are called.
These two lines of code are equivalent, calling the function a with the parameter b.
b.a(b)
b:a()
The second is briefer and more concise. Methods can increase typing speed, because there is less need to retype variable names.
Making your own
Making your own methods can
- Make your code look cool
- Make your tables more dynamic
First, we need a table to apply the method to. I'm going to make a checkbox. It doesn't actually do anything, but it's an application example. Feel free to make this work.
Checkbox = {
Checked = false;
CheckedImage = "Image";
UncheckedImage = "Image";
ImageButton = ...;
ChangeState = function(self)
self.Checked = not self.Checked
end
}
Checkbox.ImageButton.MouseButton1Down:connect(function()
Checkbox:ChangeState()
end)
You might think you could type
Checkbox.ImageButton.MouseButton1Down:connect(Checkbox.ChangeState)
However, that would call Checkbox.ChangeState(x, y) when the event fired. We need to call Checkbox.ChangeState(Checkbox).
When you call a function as a method, you automatically pass an argument as the TABLE ITSELF. For example,
function ReturnTable(Num)
return {
Num = Num;
PrintNum = function(self)
print(self.Num)
end
}
end
Tabl = ReturnTable(5)
Tabl:PrintNum()
That will output 5 because we passed in the table, so the function will receive the table it's located in. Because we called it as a method, it passed "Tabl" as an argument. You can do it with a dot, but it looks kind of stupid:
Tabl.PrintNum(Tabl)
