[Garan]

Originally Posted by SanDBoX

perhaps, but I was under the impression that in lua anything declared in a function was local to the function by default, but worth a shot.

Lunarwtr is definately correct about the scoping. If you declare a function with a variable inside it, call the function and then reference the variable outside the function you will see that the variable is scoped outside the function (unless you declare it with "local").

You can do this interactively using the debug.lua class from the Cards plugin:
Start the Cards plugin. Start a game of "Ring". Enter the command "/ringgame debug" to start the interactive debugger. It is usually a good idea to select "Plugin Environment" at the top of the debug window but it's not necessary for this example.
Create a function "testfunc" by entering

testfunc=function() abcdef="hello" end

and click Execute. Then run the function by entering

testfunc()

and click Execute. At this point, we are no longer in the scope of the function, but if you enter

return abcdef

and click Execute, it displays "hello" in the standard chat.
You can see where the testfunc and abcdef exist in the object viewer at the bottom. If you selected "Global Environment" they will be defined just inside the "_G" global object. If you chose "Plugin Environment" you will have to expand the "GaranStuff" object, then the "Cards" object.


The recursive filling of the object viewer list in debug.lua may give you some insight into how to resolve your problem.