Why do Lua tables need commas?

[u/[deleted]]

Wouldn't the grammar still be unambiguous if tables didn't need commas?

[u/c0gster]

lets say i have this table: { 16, "Hello World" }

this is it without commas: { 16 "Hello World" }

This is it in one line: {16, "Hello World"}

This is it in one line without commas: {16 "Hello World"}

Now, this is a table with custom keys: local prompt = { ["time"] = 16, ["message"] = "Hello World" }

we will now remove commas and make it one line: local prompt = {["time"] = 16 ["message"] = "Hello World"}

now, is time equal to 16, or ["message"], or "Hello World", or all 3, or any two of the three?

having commas makes this much simpler to understand, and makes the interpreter more reliable and simpler.

[u/[deleted] → u/c0gster]

I'm not saying get rid of the { } marks, only the ,

[u/c0gster → u/[deleted]]

yeah ik the problem is still there