How to declare an array with X elements in lua

Question

Is there any way to declare and reserve a space for a big array without using table.insert? Something like in Python:

a = [0]*10000

or in C:

malloc(10000*sizeof(int))

Answer 1

Lua tables are dynamic: they grow as needed. There is no need (and no way) to declare a large array. Just create it with a={} and fill it as needed.

If you must create a large array, just fill it with some value:

a={}
for i=1,10000 do
  a[i]=true
end

In any case, this is not really a job for table.insert.