How to access nodes inside of for loop?

Questions
#1

Let’s say I have a table with some nodes like

	self.social_media = {
		["discord"] = gui.get_node("discord"),
		["x"] = gui.get_node("x"),
		["telegram"] = gui.get_node("telegram")
	}

What’s the preferred way of looping over those nodes and accessing those nodes inside the loop?

Option 1

for key, value in pairs(self.social_media) do
    gui.set_scale(key, vmath.vector3(1.25, 1.25, 1))
end

Option 2

for key, value in pairs(self.social_media) do
    gui.set_scale(self.social_media[key], vmath.vector3(1.25, 1.25, 1))
end

Is there any difference in performance?

#2

nodes are references, both work but option 1 is easier

#3

Shouldn’t this be gui.set_scale(value, ...) ?

1 Like
#4

Nope, it’s node then value. No idea why you’d put the value first

#5

What I mean is that the key and value returned from pairs() would be of types string and node (or actually userdata), but in Option 1 in the original post the key was used.

self.social_media = {
	["discord"] = gui.get_node("discord"),
	["x"] = gui.get_node("x"),
	["telegram"] = gui.get_node("telegram")
}

-- Option 1 from original post
for key, value in pairs(self.social_media) do
	print(key) -- "discord", "x" or "telegram"
	gui.set_scale(key, vmath.vector3(1.25, 1.25, 1))
end

-- My suggestion
for key, value in pairs(self.social_media) do
	gui.set_scale(value, vmath.vector3(1.25, 1.25, 1))
end
2 Likes
#6

I think you’re right because in my example “key” is a string while “value” would be the actual reference to the node.

So the question is if there is any difference between using self.social_media[key] and value inside the for loop and the answer is probably: No, but the second is easier to write (less characters).

Additionally it make sense to use for key, node instead of for key, value, right?

#7

Yes, it clearer this way.

Not much of a difference performance wise no.

1 Like
#8

We also recommend users to measure their test cases.
Use e.g. socket.gettime()before and after to measure your code snippet. That should give you an idea which solution is more performant.

1 Like
#9

Oh yeah my bad