Attempt to concatenate global 'q101' (a nil value)

Question

i like to load text form a external .lua file in to my game, here is a little test i setup to test the principal, i know if i give "q101" numbers like so "q101 = 123456" the code displays the numbers 123456 but i don't understand why it doesn't with letters.

Can some one please explain how i can do this is the right way, as this is clearly not the way of doing it

q101 = HELLO

Q1 = display.newText("".. q101, 160, 20, MYRIADPRO, 30)
Q1:setTextColor( 255, 255, 2552)
Q1.x = display.contentWidth/2  
Q1.y = display.contentHeight/2
screenGroup:insert(Q1)

Solution

This line q101 = HELLO is setting the value of the q101 variable to the value of the HELLO variable. And as the global variable with that name has no value (as it has never been defined) you are assigning nil to your q101 variable.

Numbers cannot be variables and so do not work that way.

You want to assign the string "HELLO" to your variable: q101 = "HELLO".

Comments

[kevin ver]

i have one more little question, i'f updated the original question

[Etan Reisner]

q1 is a string "q201". You then use that in your display call. So you display that string. You want that used as a variable. You need to look it up in the globals table _G[q1] or use a local table instead of _G and do the same sort of lookup.