Serializing data - am I doing this efficiently?

[GoreMotel]

Hi!

 

I've written a small mod that serializes data about the game world and connected players, so that I can display that info on a website. I'm using JSON for serialization, writing the data to a text file, then I fetch and display it with jQuery using an Ajax request.

 

Here is the code:

 

local periodiclocal io = GLOBAL.iolocal os = GLOBAL.oslocal mode = GLOBAL.TheNet:GetServerGameMode()local isdedicated = GLOBAL.TheNet:GetServerIsDedicated()local json = GLOBAL.require("json")GLOBAL.assert(json.encode)local function Writer()  local file = io.open(MODROOT.."serverstats.txt", "w")  if file then    local state = GLOBAL.TheWorld.state    local clients = GLOBAL.TheNet:GetClientTable()    local clientsno = 0    local stats = {}    local players = {}    for i,j in pairs(clients) do      if ((not isdedicated or j["performance"] == nil) and (j["playerage"] > 0)) then        local player = {}        player["playerage"] = j["playerage"]        player["name"] = j["name"]        player["prefab"] = j["prefab"]        player["r"] = string.format("%.4f", j["colour"][1])        player["g"] = string.format("%.4f", j["colour"][2])        player["b"] = string.format("%.4f", j["colour"][3])        players[clientsno] = player        clientsno = clientsno + 1      end    end    stats["time"] = os.time()    stats["cycles"] = state.cycles + 1    stats["phase"] = state.phase    stats["season"] = state.season    stats["remaining"] = state.remainingdaysinseason    stats["precipitation"] = state.precipitation    stats["mode"] = mode    stats["clientsno"] = clientsno    if (clientsno > 0) then      stats["players"] = players    end     local jstats = json.encode(stats)    file:write(jstats)    file:close()  else    print("ERROR! Can't write server stats.")    periodic:Cancel()  endendAddSimPostInit(function()  periodic = GLOBAL.scheduler:ExecutePeriodic(30, Writer) end)

 

It works fine, but I'm new to Lua and I haven't coded at all for a long while and I'm wondering if I've written this efficiently? Is there stuff that could be changed so that the code gets executed faster?

 

Do note that everything gets repeated every 30 seconds, will that affect the performance of the server in a big way?

Edited August 4, 2015 by GoreMotel

[Maris]

Why you ask if it works fine?

Also give the url to your website plz.

[GoreMotel]

Well, I am curious if I've written efficient code, so that the server isn't severely taxed. I'd also like to find out if others tried to implement something similar and how they did it.

 

You can see the stats in action here: link. Or check the picture below: