Question: How do you store data in Love2D?

Answer

In Love2D, data storage can be performed using the filesystem API. To persist data across game sessions, you typically save data to a file on the user's system in a directory that Love2D has write access to.

Here's a basic example of how you could save and load a simple table of data as JSON:

First, you need to ensure that dkjson or another JSON library is available for encoding and decoding your data since Love2D does not have native JSON support.

Saving data to a file:

local json = require("dkjson")

function saveData(data, filename)
    local path = love.filesystem.getSaveDirectory() .. "/" .. filename
    local contents = json.encode(data)
    love.filesystem.write(filename, contents)
end

-- Usage:
local myGameData = {
    highscores = {1000, 750, 500},
    settings = {soundOn = true, difficulty = "medium"}
}
saveData(myGameData, "mygamedata.json")

Loading data from a file:

function loadData(filename)
    local contents, size = love.filesystem.read(filename)
    if contents then
        local data, pos, err = json.decode(contents, 1, nil)
        if err then
            return {}, err -- Return empty table and error message if decoding fails
        end
        return data
    else
        return {} -- Return empty table if file does not exist
    end
end

-- Usage:
local loadedData, errorMessage = loadData("mygamedata.json")
if errorMessage then
    print("Error loading data: " .. errorMessage)
else
    -- Do something with loadedData
end

Make sure you handle the cases where the file doesn't exist or the JSON is malformed. You should also manage the read and write permissions correctly, ensuring that your application only writes to directories it has access to.

These functions can be expanded to handle different types of data structures as needed. Always test saving and loading functionality thoroughly to make sure that data integrity is maintained.