Originally Posted by Phanx
Originally Posted by Malsomnus
Phanx: Sorry, what I meant to say was not that I don't understand the statement, but that I don't understand the reasoning behind it, which appears counter-intuitive to me.
If we take your first and second examples, what do you gain by moving the variable into the loop? It seems like you just define 4 variables instead of just 1, which means more CPU time spent on creating the variable and more work for the GC.
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You're creating 4 string values and performing 4 variable assignments either way. It doesn't matter whether you're overwriting an existing variable or not, so you should use scoping appropriately, and keep your code clean. |
Explaining The Reason:
The point of keeping variables in their relevant scope is akin to only allocating memory when you need to use it and proper cleanup when you don't in other languages. All this is done behind the scenes with Lua's garbage collector, but it's still a good practice to follow nonetheless. These so-called "good programming practices" make it easy and simple to program reliable code regardless of which language you're using.
The code posted by Rainrider and Phanx are both correct, although the situations of the variables in question by each are completely different.