Help with sorting a table

[satya]

hey guys

here is something i have done till now,

i have a table

["pharoh"] = { --username
		["tm"] = "22:03:58", --lasttime wen he was in the hub
		["SeW"] = 0, -- something
		["pt"] = 10, --his pts in hub
		["SeM"] = 0, --sometjhing
		["dt"] = "Thursday the 01 of January ", --date wen he was in the hub
		["rdt"] = 0.00049875311720698, -- date wen he added pts
		["ip"] = "xx.xx.xx.xx",-- his ip
	},

in this table i store records of user with there nicks. now i want to sort all data in this table wrt to "pts" value of every user, in descending order. watt i want to do is wen ever ne user logs in i wanna show the pts table in descending order. how can i do dat(sorting of table's contents)?
sorry if i m sounding stupid 
Thanks satya

CG if u rem me i have came so far from where i started all thanks to u. Pls try to help me again. 

[bastya_elvtars]

This is a very good question and I am happy to see some coding discussion here as it is quite scant nowadays. What I usually do is to create an array of "pt" values with the names belonging to them, e. g.:

[25] = {"joe", "sam", "bob"},
[30] = { "tom"}

I do this via metatables with a __newindex metamethod. You can find more on this in the Wiki. Should you have problems, feel free to ask.

[satya]

This is a very good question and I am happy to see some coding discussion here as it is quite scant nowadays. What I usually do is to create an array of "pt" values with the names belonging to them, e. g.:

[25] = {"joe", "sam", "bob"},
[30] = { "tom"}

I do this via metatables with a __newindex metamethod. You can find more on this in the Wiki. Should you have problems, feel free to ask.

u know wat buddy dats wat i was thinking abt
bt i m having some prob, here i will xplain with xample

if there are more than one user has pt 25 as u showd they will be group, bt i don understand how wud dey get grouped
here is how i will do to make a temp table

temp={}
for v in pairs(table)
temp[table[v]["pts"]]=v
end

using the above code on the table show below

table={
	["pharoh1"] = { --username
		["tm"] = "22:03:58", --lasttime wen he was in the hub
		["SeW"] = 0, -- something
		["pt"] = 10, --his pts in hub
		["SeM"] = 0, --sometjhing
		["dt"] = "Thursday the 01 of January ", --date wen he was in the hub
		["rdt"] = 0.00049875311720698, -- date wen he added pts
		["ip"] = "xx.xx.xx.xx",-- his ip
	},
	["pharoh2"] = { --username
		["tm"] = "22:03:58", --lasttime wen he was in the hub
		["SeW"] = 0, -- something
		["pt"] = 10, --his pts in hub
		["SeM"] = 0, --sometjhing
		["dt"] = "Thursday the 01 of January ", --date wen he was in the hub
		["rdt"] = 0.00049875311720698, -- date wen he added pts
		["ip"] = "xx.xx.xx.xx",-- his ip
	},
	["pharoh3"] = { --username
		["tm"] = "22:03:58", --lasttime wen he was in the hub
		["SeW"] = 0, -- something
		["pt"] = 10, --his pts in hub
		["SeM"] = 0, --sometjhing
		["dt"] = "Thursday the 01 of January ", --date wen he was in the hub
		["rdt"] = 0.00049875311720698, -- date wen he added pts
		["ip"] = "xx.xx.xx.xx",-- his ip
	},
}

You see all of them have same pts so instead of gettin grouped they will get overwritten so i wanna know how to group them together.

and one more.  ;D

i have command in the hub where user can specify his new added shares, i want to log these shares i know how to do that

[username]={
	[1/1/08]={abc,xyz},
	[2/1/08]={abc,xyz},
	[3/1/08]={abc,xyz},
}

above is an example of dat table its logs the share accordin to his nick and date when he shared, now wat i want is if today he shares a say "YES MAN" now here i want to add the stuffs at the end of the table. i.e. the new share he does on that date gets appended to that date shares. Now while writing this i went through the LUA MANUAL and found this

table.insert (table, [pos,] value)

Inserts element value at position pos in table, shifting up other elements to open space, if necessary. The default value for pos is n+1, where n is the length of the table (see ?2.5.5), so that a call table.insert(t,x) inserts x at the end of table t.

Is this how i have to do, kindly xplain with short explains.  ;D
sorry if i sound stupid,

thanks Satya

[satya]

I mean kindly explain wit short examples. Pls

[bastya_elvtars]

OK, I see that you need explanation on the difference between tables and arrays. Arrays are tables with numerical indices (as Mutor has already stated). table.insert, table.sort & friends will only work on arrays. Examples of arrays:

arr = {"joe", "bob", "sam"}
-- this is equivalent to:
{[1]="joe", [2] = "bob, [3] ="sam"}

However, this is an array too:

{[1]="joe", [15] = "bob, [38665] ="sam"}

Arrays by definiton have only numerical indices. Now to your problem. This code:

temp={}
  for v in pairs(table)
  temp[table[v]["pts"]]=v
end

they will sure get overwritten. If you want a structure like I posted above you need to do this:

temp={}
  for v in pairs(table)
  local WeNeed = table[v]["pts"] -- so we won't in struct Lua to do the same lookup many times
  temp[WeNeed] = {} or WeNeed -- checking for existence of this key/value pair in the table, if it does not exist, create
  table.insert(temp[WeNeed], v) -- the key is the "pts" number, the value is an array (= "list") of users
end

thus you will get the structure I ahve posted above.

Hope this is clear.

[bastya_elvtars]

BTW if you don't mind (and even if you do ) I have split the topic and moved to the appropriate forum.

[satya]

OK, I see that you need explanation on the difference between tables and arrays. Arrays are tables with numerical indices (as Mutor has already stated). table.insert, table.sort & friends will only work on arrays. Examples of arrays:

arr = {"joe", "bob", "sam"}
-- this is equivalent to:
{[1]="joe", [2] = "bob, [3] ="sam"}

However, this is an array too:

{[1]="joe", [15] = "bob, [38665] ="sam"}

Arrays by definiton have only numerical indices. Now to your problem. This code:

temp={}
  for v in pairs(table)
  temp[table[v]["pts"]]=v
end

they will sure get overwritten. If you want a structure like I posted above you need to do this:

temp={}
  for v in pairs(table)
  local WeNeed = table[v]["pts"] -- so we won't in struct Lua to do the same lookup many times
  temp[WeNeed] = {} or WeNeed -- checking for existence of this key/value pair in the table, if it does not exist, create
  table.insert(temp[WeNeed], v) -- the key is the "pts" number, the value is an array (= "list") of users
end

thus you will get the structure I ahve posted above.

Hope this is clear.

As u said i have done the same, here take a look

local tmp={}
local dum
RepChart = function()
	for i in pairs(usrec) do
		dum=usrec[i]["pt"]
		if tmp[dum]==nil then
			tmp[dum]={}
		end
		table.insert(tmp[dum],i)
	end
	table.sort(tmp)
end

and wen i do this

RegConnected = function(user)
	local mSG
	mSG="\n\t\t\t"..string.rep("=",20).."Reputation toppers"..string.rep("=",20).."\n\n\t\t\t\tPoints\t\t\tUser\n"
	for i in pairs(tmp) do
		mSG=mSG.."\n\n\t\t\t\t"..i.."\t\t\t"
		for j in pairs(tmp[i]) do
			mSG=mSG..tmp[i][j]..", "
		end
	end
	Core.SendToUser(user,mSG)
end

here is wat i get

====================Reputation toppers====================

				Points			User


				25			achilese, 

				50			pappz, abhiu, 

				85			fellopian_dude, 

				15			coolraj, 

				30			coolhunk, blackjack, 

				45			--vampire--,

They are not sorted as i wanted , i even tried to use the function table.sort(tmp) bt it didn helped n i don even know how to use dat function. Can u pls lemme know where i m going wrong?????  : : ??? ???

Thanks Satya

[satya]

Hey guys i am still waitin for reply. Pls mods i am waitin for a help

[satya]

I have found a work around to get what i wanted. anyways thanks for time