Request: LuaTable ctor with Array and/or Dictionary parameters

[CodeSmile-0000011110110111]

For better data-exchange from C# to Lua I would really like to have a LuaTable initializer that I can just pass an array, a dictionary, or both and preferably with internalized LuaValue conversion.

This would be good enough:

LuaValue[] array = ...
var arrayTable = new LuaTable(array);

IDictionary<LuaValue, LuaValue> dict = ...
var dictTable = new LuaTable(dict);

// and both:
var table = new LuaTable(array, dict);

While this would be great:

bool[] boolArray = ...
var arrayTable = new LuaTable(boolArray);

Dictionary<int, SomeUserDataType> userdataDict = ...
var dictTable = new LuaTable(userdataDict);

// and both:
float[] floatArray = ...
Dictionary<string, int> intDict = ...
var table = new LuaTable(floatArray, intDict);

And for best Unity serialization support, since it cannot serialize dictionaries, using two lists for dictionary keys and values to avoid having to first create a dictionary that would then internally get converted to LuaValueDictionary:

ILuaUserData[] array = ...
IEnumerable<string> keys = ...
IEnumerable<int> values = ...
var dictTable = new LuaTable(array, keys, values);

The keys and values enumerables need to have matching lengths.

Again, the types are just for example. Supported LuaValue Types should be automatically converted, otherwise it throws.

[Akeit0]

It seems sufficient to make the following on your own.
It is not likely to be possible to implement individual case optimization on the part of this library.

IDictionary<LuaValue, LuaValue> dict = ...
CreateTable(dict);

static LuaTable CreateTable(IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<LuaValue, LuaValue>> pairs)
{
    var table = new LuaTable();
    foreach (var pair in pairs)
    {
        table[pair.Key] = pair.Value;
    }

    return table;
}

[CodeSmile-0000011110110111]

That's what I've done so far. Would be nice to have this as an extension method in the framework so that this has a common API.

[CodeSmile-0000011110110111]

Will we be able to do DoFileAsync(script, LuaValue[] args) passing arguments to the script in 0.5?

So that outside any function we can get these as "command line" arguments:

local scriptArgs = {...}

[Akeit0]

Will we be able to do DoFileAsync(script, LuaValue[] args) passing arguments to the script in 0.5?

I had a discussion with nuskey about it before, but we finally decided not to support it, because it is not supported in clua and can be handled by loadfile(path)(args).

[CodeSmile-0000011110110111]

In case someone has the same need, I went with this solution just passing a single LuaTable as argument.

These are the necessary extension methods:

public static class LuaStateExt
{
	public static ValueTask<LuaValue[]> DoStringAsync(this LuaState state, String source, String? chunkName,
		LuaTable arguments, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
	{
		var access = state.RootAccess;
		access.ThrowIfInvalid();
		var closure = access.State.Load(source, chunkName ?? source);
		access.Thread.Stack.Push(arguments);
		return access.DoClosureAsync(closure, 1, cancellationToken);
	}

	public static async ValueTask<LuaValue[]> DoClosureAsync(this LuaThreadAccess access, LuaClosure closure,
		Int32 argumentCount, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
	{
		access.ThrowIfInvalid();
		var count = await access.RunAsync(closure, argumentCount, cancellationToken);
		using var results = access.ReadReturnValues(count);
		return results.AsSpan().ToArray();
	}
}

I can then call Dostring like this:

var args = new LuaTable();
args["HelloFromCSharp"] = "uh, hello?";
await m_Lua.State.DoStringAsync(m_LuaAsset.text, m_LuaAsset.name, args);

And in the Lua script I use the arguments like so:

local args = ...

print("args count: " .. tostring(#args))
for k, v in pairs(args) do
    print("\t" .. tostring(k) .. " = " .. tostring(v))
end