Is it possible to turn a string into userdata?

[CallMePyro]

Say I have a string of a players nickname, for instance mine. CallMePyro. How would I turn that into userdata to slay or kick or whatever?

As always, help is very much appreciated.

[Rubat]

Loop ( for id,ply in pairs(table) do ) through all players (player.GetAll) and compare each name to your string using string.find(ply:Name(), mystring).

[CallMePyro]

edit: -snip-

[rejax]

[LUA]
local function GetPlayersByNick( nick )

local FoundPlayers = {}

for k,v in pairs( player.GetAll() ) do
if v:Nick() == nick then
table.insert( FoundPlayers, v )
end
end

return FoundPlayers

end

local function KillPlayerName( name )

local FoundPlayers = GetPlayersByNick( name )

if #FoundPlayers == 1 then
FoundPlayers[1]:Kill()
else
print( "found more than one player, choosing first" )
FoundPlayers[1]:Kill()
end

end
[/LUA]

written quickly, should do

[CallMePyro]

[QUOTE=rejax;42582768][LUA]
local function GetPlayersByNick( nick )

local FoundPlayers = {}

for k,v in pairs( player.GetAll() ) do
if v:Nick() == nick then
table.insert( FoundPlayers, v )
end
end

return FoundPlayers

end

local function KillPlayerName( name )

local FoundPlayers = GetPlayersByNick( name )

if #FoundPlayers == 1 then
FoundPlayers[1]:Kill()
else
print( "found more than one player, choosing first" )
FoundPlayers[1]:Kill()
end

end
[/LUA]

written quickly, should do[/QUOTE]

I actually ended up doing something pretty similar to that. Thank you!

[Luni]

If you're writing chat or console admin commands it's better to use multiple identifiers instead of relying on nick matching, in case you have griefers with identical SF names:

[lua]
local Util = UP.Util
local player = player
local string = string

-- Find a player by user ID; returns one exact match or nothing
function Util.FindByUserID(num)
num = tonumber(num)
if not num then
return {}
end
for k, v in pairs(player.GetAll()) do
if v:UserID() == num then
return {v}
end
end
return {}
end

-- Find a player by SteamID; can return multiple partial matches
function Util.FindBySteamID(str)
local rec, R = {}, 1
for k, v in pairs(player.GetAll()) do
-- equality always has priority
if v:SteamID() == str then
return {v}
elseif string.find(v:SteamID(), str, nil, true) then
rec[R], R = v, R + 1
end
end
return rec
end

-- Find a player by nickname; can return multiple partial matches
function Util.FindByNick(str)
local rec, R = {}, 1
for k, v in pairs(player.GetAll()) do
-- equality always has priority
if v:Nick() == str then
return {v}
elseif string.find(v:Nick(), str, nil, true) then
rec[R], R = v, R + 1
end
end
return rec
end

-- Try to find a player or players matching a given identifier
-- Valid identifiers: "#userid", "$steamid", "*" <player you're looking at>, "nickname"
function Util.FindPlayer(str, ply)
local pref = string.sub(str, 1, 1)

-- UserID
if pref == "#" then
return Util.FindByUserID(string.sub(str, 2))

-- SteamID
elseif pref == "$" then
return Util.FindBySteamID(string.sub(str, 2))

-- Eyetrace
elseif str == "*" then
local ent = ply:GetEyeTrace().Entity
if IsValid(ent) and ent:IsPlayer() then
return {ent}
end
return {}

-- We assume anything else is a nick
else
return Util.FindByNick(str)
end
end
[/lua]

[CallMePyro]

edit: -snip-