LuaDocument Methods
This section describes the methods provided by the LuaDocument object. A LuaDocument allows you to access and modify the reference, metadata and content of a document.
If you have a LuaDocument object called document you can call its methods using the ':' operator. For example:
document:addField(name, value)
| Constructor | Description | 
|---|---|
| LuaDocument:new | The constructor for a LuaDocumentobject (creates a newLuaDocumentobject that only contains a reference). | 
| Method | Description | 
|---|---|
| addField | Creates a new field. | 
| addSection | Add an empty section to the end of the document. | 
| appendContent | Appends content to the existing content of the document. | 
| copyField | Creates a new named field with the same value as an existing named field. | 
| copyFieldNoOverwrite | Copies a field to a certain name but does not overwrite the existing value. | 
| countField | Returns the number of fields with the name specified. | 
| deleteField | Deletes a field from the document. | 
| deleteFieldByPath | Deletes all document fields with the specified path. | 
| getContent | Returns the document content. | 
| getField | Returns the first field with a specified name. | 
| getFieldNames | Returns all the field names for the document. | 
| getFields | Returns all fields with the specified name. | 
| getFieldsByRegex | Returns all fields where the field name or path matches a regular expression. | 
| getFieldValue | Gets a field value. | 
| getFieldValues | Gets all values of a multi-valued field. | 
| getNextSection | Gets the next section in a document, allowing you to perform find or add operations on every section. | 
| getReference | Returns the document reference. | 
| getSection | Returns a LuaDocument object with the specified section as the active section. | 
| getSectionCount | Returns the number of sections in the document. | 
| getValueByPath | Gets the value of the document field or sub field with the specified path. | 
| getValuesByPath | Gets all values of a multi-value document field or sub field, with the specified path. | 
| hasField | Checks whether the document has a named field. | 
| insertJson | Inserts metadata, from a JSON string, into a document. | 
| insertXml | Inserts XML metadata into a document. | 
| insertXmlWithoutRoot | Inserts XML metadata into a document. | 
| removeSection | Removes a section from a document. | 
| renameField | Renames a field. | 
| setContent | Sets the content for a document. | 
| setFieldValue | Sets a field value. | 
| setReference | Sets the document reference. | 
| to_idx | Returns a string containing the document in IDX format. | 
| to_json | Returns a string containing the document in JSON format. | 
| to_xml | Returns a string containing the document in XML format. | 
| writeStubIdx | Writes out a stub IDX document. | 
| writeStubXml | Writes out a stub XML document. |