Lua: Datatypes

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This article assumes the use of Lua 5.1. Information may not be accurate or may need revision if you are using a different version.

Lua has 8 basic datatypes as of version 5.1: numbers, strings, booleans, tables, functions, threads, userdata, and nil. Like some other scripting languages, Lua is dynamically-typed, meaning only the values have a type, not a variable; therefore, a single variable can have any type assigned to it no matter what type it currently holds.

Because a specific type matters in some situations, the type() function can be used on any variable or data; this function will return a string containing one of "number", "string", "boolean", "table", "function", "thread", "userdata", or "nil" with respect to that datatype.

Further information about specific types can be found on these pages:

• Numbers
• Strings
• Booleans
• Tables
• Functions
• Threads
• Userdata
• Nil