(Also posted on the Lua mailing list)
So I've been writing deep-copy algorithms, and I wanna test them to see if they work the way I want them to. While I do have access to the original->copy map, I want a general-purpose deep-compare algorithm that must be able to compare table keys (tables as keys?).
My deep-copy algorithm(s) are avaliable here: https://gist.github.com/SoniEx2/fc5d3614614e4e3fe131 (it's not very organized, but there are 3 of them, one uses recursive calls, the other uses a todo table, and the other simulates a call stack (in a very ugly but 5.1-compatible way))
Recursive version:
local function deep(inp,copies)
if type(inp) ~= "table" then
return inp
end
local out = {}
copies = (type(copies) == "table") and copies or {}
copies[inp] = out -- use normal assignment so we use copies' metatable (if any)
for key,value in next,inp do -- skip metatables by using next directly
-- we want a copy of the key and the value
-- if one is not available on the copies table, we have to make one
-- we can't do normal assignment here because metatabled copies tables might set metatables
-- out[copies[key] or deep(key,copies)]=copies[value] or deep(value,copies)
rawset(out,copies[key] or deep(key,copies),copies[value] or deep(value,copies))
end
return out
end
Edit: I found things like this which don't really handle tables as keys: http://snippets.luacode.org/snippets/Deep_Comparison_of_Two_Values_3 (Copy of snippet below)
function deepcompare(t1,t2,ignore_mt)
local ty1 = type(t1)
local ty2 = type(t2)
if ty1 ~= ty2 then return false end
-- non-table types can be directly compared
if ty1 ~= 'table' and ty2 ~= 'table' then return t1 == t2 end
-- as well as tables which have the metamethod __eq
local mt = getmetatable(t1)
if not ignore_mt and mt and mt.__eq then return t1 == t2 end
for k1,v1 in pairs(t1) do
local v2 = t2[k1]
if v2 == nil or not deepcompare(v1,v2) then return false end
end
for k2,v2 in pairs(t2) do
local v1 = t1[k2]
if v1 == nil or not deepcompare(v1,v2) then return false end
end
return true
end
Serializing is also not an option, as order of serialization is "random".
As others said, that depends a lot on your definition of equivalence. If you want this to be true:
local t1 = {[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}}
local t2 = {[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}}
assert( table_eq(t1, t2) )
If you do, then each time the key in t1 is a table, you'll have to check its equivalence with every table key in t2 and try them one by one. This is a way to do it (metatable stuff left out for readability).
function table_eq(table1, table2)
local avoid_loops = {}
local function recurse(t1, t2)
-- compare value types
if type(t1) ~= type(t2) then return false end
-- Base case: compare simple values
if type(t1) ~= "table" then return t1 == t2 end
-- Now, on to tables.
-- First, let's avoid looping forever.
if avoid_loops[t1] then return avoid_loops[t1] == t2 end
avoid_loops[t1] = t2
-- Copy keys from t2
local t2keys = {}
local t2tablekeys = {}
for k, _ in pairs(t2) do
if type(k) == "table" then table.insert(t2tablekeys, k) end
t2keys[k] = true
end
-- Let's iterate keys from t1
for k1, v1 in pairs(t1) do
local v2 = t2[k1]
if type(k1) == "table" then
-- if key is a table, we need to find an equivalent one.
local ok = false
for i, tk in ipairs(t2tablekeys) do
if table_eq(k1, tk) and recurse(v1, t2[tk]) then
table.remove(t2tablekeys, i)
t2keys[tk] = nil
ok = true
break
end
end
if not ok then return false end
else
-- t1 has a key which t2 doesn't have, fail.
if v2 == nil then return false end
t2keys[k1] = nil
if not recurse(v1, v2) then return false end
end
end
-- if t2 has a key which t1 doesn't have, fail.
if next(t2keys) then return false end
return true
end
return recurse(table1, table2)
end
assert( table_eq({}, {}) )
assert( table_eq({1,2,3}, {1,2,3}) )
assert( table_eq({1,2,3, foo = "fighters"}, {["foo"] = "fighters", 1,2,3}) )
assert( table_eq({{{}}}, {{{}}}) )
assert( table_eq({[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}}, {[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}}) )
assert( table_eq({a = 1, [{}] = {}}, {[{}] = {}, a = 1}) )
assert( table_eq({a = 1, [{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}}, {[{}] = {2}, a = 1, [{}] = {1}}) )
assert( not table_eq({1,2,3,4}, {1,2,3}) )
assert( not table_eq({1,2,3, foo = "fighters"}, {["foo"] = "bar", 1,2,3}) )
assert( not table_eq({{{}}}, {{{{}}}}) )
assert( not table_eq({[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}}, {[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}, [{}] = {3}}) )
assert( not table_eq({[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {2}}, {[{}] = {1}, [{}] = {3}}) )