How to merge two tables overwriting the elements which are in both?

for k,v in pairs(second_table) do first_table[k] = v end

Here's what i came up with based on Doug Currie's answer:

function tableMerge(t1, t2)
    for k,v in pairs(t2) do
        if type(v) == "table" then
            if type(t1[k] or false) == "table" then
                tableMerge(t1[k] or {}, t2[k] or {})
            else
                t1[k] = v
            end
        else
            t1[k] = v
        end
    end
    return t1
end

Wouldn't this work properly?

function merge(t1, t2)
    for k, v in pairs(t2) do
        if (type(v) == "table") and (type(t1[k] or false) == "table") then
            merge(t1[k], t2[k])
        else
            t1[k] = v
        end
    end
    return t1
end

For numeric-index table merging:

for k,v in pairs(secondTable) do table.insert(firstTable, v) end

Here's iterative version for deep merge because I don't like potential stack overflows of recursive.

local merge_task = {}
function merge_to_left_o(orig, new)
   merge_task[orig] = new

   local left = orig
   while left ~= nil do
      local right = merge_task[left]
      for new_key, new_val in pairs(right) do
         local old_val = left[new_key]
         if old_val == nil then
            left[new_key] = new_val
         else
            local old_type = type(old_val)
            local new_type = type(new_val)
            if (old_type == "table" and new_type == "table") then
               merge_task[old_val] = new_val
            else
               left[new_key] = new_val
            end
         end
      end
      merge_task[left] = nil
      left = next(merge_task)
   end
end