Lua Recursion issue unexpected result-CodePudding

I'm trying to figure out why this function is ignoring the middle most table? I'm overlooking something simple I assume.

Here's the code

tbl = {
    name = "first table";
    tbl = {
        name = "middle table";
        tbl = {
            name = "last table";
        };
    };
}

sayName = function(tbl)
    print(tbl.name)
    if tbl.tbl ~= nil then
        for _,v in pairs(tbl.tbl) do
            sayName(v)    
        end;
    end;
end;

sayName(tbl)

Output>

first table
last table
nil

CodePudding user response：

In your example, you have a recursive structure, each table have 1 name and possibly a sub-table named tbl. So, I am not clear why would one use the for loop in these conditions.

tbl = {
  name = "first table",
  tbl = {
    name = "middle table",
    tbl = {
      name = "last table"
    }
  }
}

function PrintTable (Table)

  print("# Name", Table.name)
  
  local SubTable = Table.tbl

  if SubTable then
    PrintTable(SubTable)
  end
  
end

PrintTable(tbl)

Will return:

# Name  first table
# Name  middle table
# Name  last table