How to InsertItem [cell] = data?

[Bugala]

I have an empty table:

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mytable={}

what i want it to look like in the end is:

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mytable = {
          ["name1"] = variable1,
          ["name2"] = variable2
               }

But I am creating this list on the fly as needed, and I am planning to use InsertItem and RemoveItem commands to achieve it, but I am having trouble how to actually do it?

For example:

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temptable = { ["name1"] = variable1 }

insertitem(mytable, temptable)

would result in:

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mytable = {
                   {   ["name1"] = variable1 },
                   {   ["name2"] = variable2 }
                         }

I can get it done this way:

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temptable["name1"] = variable1

But i would rather use insertitem instead, so how do i actually do it the way i am wainting to?
Should be simplest of thing to achieve, but i just cant figure out how to.

[SamuraiCrow]

For a result that will look like this:

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setItem(mytable,"name1",variable1)
variable2=getItem(mytable,"name2")

Implementing it will involve inserting the function into the table as a member:

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mytable={}

function setItem(table,key,value)
  table[key]=value
endfunction

function getItem(table,key)
  return(table[key])
endfunction

The main reason for doing this is so you can add sanity checks and overwrite checks to the set method and empty field checks to the get method. Normally with an object-oriented language you could add a set and get method for every field in a class but with tables this is unnecessary.

-edit-
Using the __index and __newindex metamethods would allow you to keep the original syntax with the square brackets while adding the checks to the reads and writes. See http://hollywood-mal.com/docs/html/holl ... OprMM.html for how to do metamethods on tables.

[Bugala]

Thanks from idea. SetItem didnt even cross my mind.