Using the AddOn namespace

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The addon namespace is a private table shared between Lua files in the same addon.
It allows for addons to access data between files without exposing or polluting variables to the global environment.

addonName, addonTable = ...

Vararg

addonName

string - The name of your addon as in the TOC file and folder name.

addonTable

table - The shared addon table between the Lua files of an addon.

Example

This addon defines the "foo" key on the addon table in FileA.lua and accesses it in FileB.lua

MyAddon.toc

## Interface: 100207
## Version: 1.0.0
## Title: Test

FileA.lua
FileB.lua

FileA.lua

• Note that the underscore "_" here is used as a throwaway variable when we don't really care about it.

local _, ns = ...
ns.foo = "Banana"

FileB.lua

local addonName, ns = ...
print(addonName, ns.foo) -- prints "MyAddon" and "Banana"

Notes

You can also simply use a unique global variable.

FileA.lua

MyAddon = {}
MyAddon.value = 0

function MyAddon:DoSomething(increment)
	self.value = self.value + increment
end

MyAddon:DoSomething(2)

FileB.lua

MyAddon:DoSomething(3)
print(MyAddon.value) -- 5

Patch changes

• Patch 3.3.0 (2009-12-08): Added.
  

References

• haste 2010-06-28. WoWInterface: ns ?!.
• Phanx 2014-06-01. WoWInterface - trying to understand modules through namespace. Retrieved on 2019-04-22.