BizHawk 2.1.1: read("*number") always returns 0 in Lua – Artificial Intelligence

I’m trying to run the brilliant Mar I/O artificial intelligence written in Lua (more on this at https://youtu.be/qv6UVOQ0F44)

The AI runs successfully in the Lua (v.5.1) console of the BizHawk emulator (v.2.1.1), but I’m getting an error when trying to reload a previous state of the algorithm.

After opening the file, it seems like file:read(“*number”) will always return 0, whereas read(“*all”) and “*line” both read the content correctly. I’ve also tried “*n” with no luck.

Full script at: https://pastebin.com/ZZmSNaHX

function loadFile(filename)
  local file = io.open(filename, "r")
  pool = newPool()
  pool.generation = file:read("*number")
  pool.maxFitness = file:read("*number")
  ...

function writeFile(filename)
  local file = io.open(filename, "w")
  file:write(pool.generation .. "n")
  file:write(pool.maxFitness .. "n")
  ...

The file generated starts with:

18[LF]
1938[LF]
...

But still, I only see 0s in the console:

console.writeline("Gen " .. pool.generation) --> "Gen 0"
console.writeline("Max Fitness " .. pool.maxFitness) --> "Max Fitness 0"

What’s also puzzling is that this script has been discussed in different forums and no one seems to report the same issue.