They are not arrays. There are no arrays in Lua. There's only one compound data type (excluding userdata) and that's table. Tables are hash maps, or dicts, not

They are not arrays. There are no arrays in Lua. There's only one compound data type (excluding userdata) and that's table. Tables are hash maps, or dicts, not arrays. You can represent arrays with tables, but that would still be "tables acting somewhat like arrays" and not "arrays". Also, you cannot actually store a `nil` value in a table. Nils are what you get when you access nonexistent key; that means the iteration stops at the first n from a 1,2,3... sequence which has no value in the table. If you need to represent a "hole" in the array, use a placeholder object, then convert it to nil at the point of use. There are many libraries of common utilities that make working with tables-as-arrays more convenient. If you don't want to use them, it's mostly trivial to write them yourself. What you shouldn't do, though, is trying to use the raw tables as arrays: that could indeed be a frustrating experience.