Learning Programming Question - Function Arguments Example in Tutorial

[Monkey Frog Studio]

Hello. I am fairly new to programming (been an artist all my life) and am learning from the Leadwerks Tutorial on LUA scripting. All is pretty simple to understand in principle, but I am struggling to understand this one example from Function Arguments:

function PrintUpper(text)
        print(string.upper(text))
end
PrintUpper("Functions can be fun.")

The actual code in the function, print(string.upper(text)) ... what is going on there? I get "print" and I get "string", but what is "upper" in this case? Actually, a little help understanding what is going on here overall would be a big help. The other ways of using/declaring functions seem to make sense to me, but this one is eluding me for some reason. Any help would be appreciated. 

Thanks.

[Josh]

5 minutes ago, Argent Arts said:

Hello. I am fairly new to programming (been an artist all my life) and am learning from the Leadwerks Tutorial on LUA scripting. All is pretty simple to understand in principle, but I am struggling to understand this one example from Function Arguments:

function PrintUpper(text)
        print(string.upper(text))
end
PrintUpper("Functions can be fun.")

The actual code in the function, print(string.upper(text)) ... what is going on there? I get "print" and I get "string", but what is "upper" in this case? Actually, a little help understanding what is going on here overall would be a big help. The other ways of using/declaring functions seem to make sense to me, but this one is eluding me for some reason. Any help would be appreciated. 

Thanks.

string.upper is a Lua command that converts text to upper case:
http://lua-users.org/wiki/StringLibraryTutorial

They just put the "upper" function onto a table called "string" in order to categorize all the string commands together.

[macklebee]

Make it a leadwerks system print and you will be able to see the results in the script editor:

System:Print(string.upper(text))

 

[Monkey Frog Studio]

Ah! Thanks. What confused me was "upper" because the function name also contained "Upper" (though with a capital. Even though LUA is case sensitive, I was seeing the same thing when I read it.

I understand this function now. Duh! 

[Monkey Frog Studio]

Just a suggestion (and I hope you don't mind), but since the tutorial is aimed at non-programmers, it might be good to go into a little more explanation on things. For example, it might be good to have pointed out that things like "string.upper" is a LUA command and what it does. Even clarifying some things like explaining that the name, like MyFunction, can be any name, like how you name a variable however you choose. You sort of do this, but a little more would be helpful to complete newbs to programming.