WoW:USERAPI GetReturnValues

This page documents a <i>user-defined function</i> that you can copy and paste into your addon. Replace PREFIX with your addon or lib prefix to avoid conflicts between different versions of these functions.

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Returns a list of values in whatever order you specify in order and only those you specify in order. Mostly useful for functions that return multiple values.

ret1, ret2, ... retN = USERAPI GetReturnValues(order, functionCall)

• Note: the efficiency of this approach is questioned. See the discussion page.

Function Parameters

Arguments

(order, functionCall)

order

number or numeric string

e.g. 17 or "17"

functionCall

a function call that returns a list of values.

e.g GetItemInfo(itemLink)

Returns

the number of and order of return values depend on the number specified in order and on the function passed to functionCall

Example:1

local sName, iRarity, sType, iStackCount = USERAPI GetReturnValues(1368, GetItemInfo(16846));
message(sName..","..iRarity..","..sType..","..iStackCount);

Result:1

USERAPI GetReturnValues will return the first, third, sixth, and eighth return values (in that order) from GetItemInfo(16846)

A message box will pop-up with -

Giantstalker's Helmet,4,Armor,1.

Example:2

local reason, name = USERAPI GetReturnValues(61, GetAddOnInfo("Uber Addon"));
if reason then
    _ERRORMESSAGE(name.." didn't load.\nReason code: "..reason..".");
end

Result:2

USERAPI GetReturnValues will return the sixth and first return values (in that order) from GetAddOnInfo("Uber Addon")

A error message box will pop-up with -

Uber Addon didn't load.
Reason code: MISSING

Code

local output = {}
function USERAPI GetReturnValues(order, ...)
    output = wipe(output)
    order = tostring(order)
    for i=1, strlen(order) do
        local value = select(tonumber(strsub(order, i, i)), ...)
        if value ~= nil then
            table.insert(output, value)
        end
    end
    return unpack(output)
end