All k, v's in a table not being looped through?

[Sheeplie]

I've been having some strange issues with a for loop- I'll go ahead and explain.

I've setup [B]ply.followers[/B] as a table each player owns. [B]ply.followers[/B] simply contains NPCs. I modified the GM:PlayerDeath hook so that when a player dies, a simple for loop is run to destroy each of the victim's followers.

Inside GM:PlayerDeath

	if vic.followers then
		killfollowers( vic )
	end

The killfollowers function.

function killfollowers( ply )

	for k, v in pairs( ply.followers ) do
	print( k )
				if v:IsNPC() then
					v:TakeDamage( (v:GetMaxHealth() + 100), attacker, object )
					v:Remove()
					print( k, v:GetClass(), v:EntIndex() )
				else
				print( "Not NPC" )
				end
	end

end

As you can see, I've set it up for debugging- the script will first print the index of ANY value in the table, and then- if it's a NPC, it will print the table index, class, and Entindex

So before I kill myself via "kill" in console, I set up a lua_run in console to print all of the followers in my table. ( manhacks whenever I ran it ). As you can see, it prints all 3. Console output:

1	NPC [225][npc_manhack]
2	NPC [239][npc_manhack]
3	NPC [248][npc_manhack]

Everything seems to be in order. But now let's type kill in console. I die, and 2/3 of the manhacks explode. And thanks to our killfollowers "debug prints", we can see which two got destroyed:

1
1	npc_manhack	225
2
2	npc_manhack	248

For some reason, it seemed to just skip 239 entirely. If I respawn and type "kill" again, I'll die and the last manhack will be destroyed. But why? Why not all at once?

[B]If it's of any help, this might be a clue: occasionally I'll have to type kill in console more than once to get the command to actually work, I'm unsure why this is.[/B]

At this point, I just don't see what's going wrong, code wise. Could there be some deeper factor I'm unaware of? Maybe something's being enacted that stops my for loop mid-value.
Help is, as always, appreciated.

[MysteryPancake]

Could you post the code where you add the manhacks to the ply.followers table? I'm not really sure of the problem at the moment

[Rubat]

I have a feeling that it skips it because the table indices are changed when a previous manhack is killed.

For example in your loop:
1) Loop gets to the first entry and deletes it
2) An entity gets removed from the table on the first position and all the table keys/indexes are all shifted 1 up ( so every key has 1 subtracted from them)
3) Loop goes to the next entry #2, which is now the third entity instead of the first, and deletes it
4) Loop ends as it has reached the end of the table at 2 elements.

Try more manhacks and see more get left behind.

Fix? Use a while loop.

[MysteryPancake]

But he never removed the manhack from the table? He only removed the manhack ENTITY from the game?

[Rubat]

[QUOTE=MPan1;50718967]But he never removed the manhack from the table? He only removed the manhack ENTITY from the game?[/QUOTE]

Yeah that's the thing, that's why I said I have a feeling this is the case, not that this is in fact the case.

[editline]16th July 2016[/editline]

proof of concept:

local a = {"fuck","shit", "Tets"}

for k,v in pairs(a )do
print(k,v)
--v = nil
table.remove(a, k)
end 

[editline]16th July 2016[/editline]

The thing is, the entities are supposed to be removed only by the next frame with ent.Remove(), I am not entirely sure why the elements are getting directly removed from the table, but I am sure there's gotta be an explanation.

[Sheeplie]

Wait, wait, I do have a thing setup to where when an NPC dies, it gets removed from the table. Maybe this is causing it, I'll update.

[Rubat]

There you have it. You now know the cause and a suggested fix.

[Sheeplie]

Fk yeah. Shit works like a charm. Thanks, Robotboy, for making the inference.

NPC [113][npc_manhack]
npc_manhack	113
NPC [116][npc_manhack]
npc_manhack	116
NPC [117][npc_manhack]
npc_manhack	117

Here's my updated killfollowers function that uses a while loop if anyone is interested.

function killfollowers( ply )

	if ply.followers[1] then
		while ( IsValid( ply.followers[1] ) ) do
		print( ply.followers[1] )
					local follow1 = ply.followers[1]
					if follow1:IsNPC() then
						follow1:TakeDamage( (follow1:GetMaxHealth() + 100), attacker, object )
						follow1:Remove()
						print( follow1:GetClass(), follow1:EntIndex() )
					else
					print( "Not NPC" )
					end
		end
	end
end