Variables #

Variables are places that store values. There are three kinds of variables in Lua: global variables, local variables, and table fields.

A single name can denote a global variable or a local variable (or a function's formal parameter, which is a particular kind of local variable):

    var ::= Name

Name denotes identifiers (see Lexical Conventions).

Any variable name is assumed to be global unless explicitly declared as a local (see Local Declarations). Local variables are lexically scoped: local variables can be freely accessed by functions defined inside their scope (see Visibility Rules).

Before the first assignment to a variable, its value is nil.

Square brackets are used to index a table:

    var ::= prefixexp ‘[’ exp ‘]’

The meaning of accesses to table fields can be changed via metatables (see Metatables and Metamethods).

The syntax var.Name is just syntactic sugar for var["Name"]:

    var ::= prefixexp ‘.’ Name

An access to a global variable x is equivalent to _ENV.x. Due to the way that chunks are compiled, the variable _ENV itself is never global (see Environments and the Global Environment).