behavior detail about attributes()

[tst2005]

Hello,

I'm trying to improve a lfs alternative to follow the same API and get the same behavior.

About lfs.attributes()

I see 3 different way to use it.

1. lfs.attributes(".") returns a table with all fields
2. lfs.attributes(".", "mode") returns a string : "directory"
3. lfs.attributes(".", {"mode", "foo", "blksize"}) returns a table with only the requested fields

I'm focused on the last case.

• If a requested field does not exists (like "foo"), no error raised. it seems legit and ok.

I discovered one special use case...

local lfs = require "lfs"
local request = {"mode", "foo", "blksize"}
local result = lfs.attributes(".", request)
for k,v in pairs(result) do
  print(k,v)
end

1	mode
2	foo
3	blksize
permissions	rwx------
access	1513156646
modification	1513158553
blksize	4096
blocks	123
change	1513158553
size	12345
gid	1000
rdev	0
uid	1000
dev	12345
nlink	123
mode	directory
ino	123456

EDIT: I discovered I missread the documentation, the atable argument is not a list of wanted fields but the result table pointer.

Should we rename the atable argument to resultTable ? and also add this name inside the text ?
I will try to make a PR for this.

[tst2005]

See #106

[hishamhm]

PR merged, thank you for contributing to making the documentation clearer!