Lua hierarchy string to table -

is there way can convert hierarchy string table form?

suppose input a.b.c.d

ouput should table traverses above input: a = {} a.b = {} a.b.c = {} a.b.c.d = {}

thanks.

the obvious solution parse string , construct hierarchy table that. more clever solution let lua you. bit of metamagic , function environment manipulation can done:

dump = require 'pl.pretty'.dump -- convenient table dumper penlight  function createtable(str)   local env_mt = {}   env_mt.__index = function(t, k)                      rawset(t, k, setmetatable({}, env_mt))                      return rawget(t, k)                    end   local env = setmetatable({}, env_mt)   local f = loadstring("return "..str)   setfenv(f, env)   f()   return env end  dump( createtable "a.b.c.d" ) 

this outputs:

{   = {     b = {       c = {         d = {         }       }     }   } }