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| <H1> |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/"><IMG SRC="logo.gif" ALT="Lua" BORDER=0></A> |
| Welcome to Lua 5.2 |
| </H1> |
| |
| <P> |
| <A HREF="#about">about</A> |
| · |
| <A HREF="#install">installation</A> |
| · |
| <A HREF="#changes">changes</A> |
| · |
| <A HREF="#license">license</A> |
| · |
| <A HREF="contents.html">reference manual</A> |
| |
| <H2><A NAME="about">About Lua</A></H2> |
| |
| <P> |
| Lua is a powerful, fast, lightweight, embeddable scripting language |
| developed by a |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/authors.html">team</A> |
| at |
| <A HREF="http://www.puc-rio.br/">PUC-Rio</A>, |
| the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. |
| Lua is |
| <A HREF="#license">free software</A> |
| used in many products and projects around the world. |
| |
| <P> |
| Lua's |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/">official web site</A> |
| provides complete information |
| about Lua, |
| including |
| an |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/about.html">executive summary</A> |
| and |
| updated |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/docs.html">documentation</A>, |
| especially the |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/manual/5.2/">reference manual</A>, |
| which may differ slightly from the |
| <A HREF="contents.html">local copy</A> |
| distributed in this package. |
| |
| <H2><A NAME="install">Installing Lua</A></H2> |
| |
| <P> |
| Lua is distributed in |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/ftp/">source</A> |
| form. |
| You need to build it before using it. |
| Building Lua should be straightforward |
| because |
| Lua is implemented in pure ANSI C and compiles unmodified in all known |
| platforms that have an ANSI C compiler. |
| Lua also compiles unmodified as C++. |
| The instructions given below for building Lua are for Unix-like platforms. |
| See also |
| <A HREF="#other">instructions for other systems</A> |
| and |
| <A HREF="#customization">customization options</A>. |
| |
| <P> |
| If you don't have the time or the inclination to compile Lua yourself, |
| get a binary from |
| <A HREF="http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaBinaries">LuaBinaries</A>. |
| Try also |
| <A HREF="http://luaforwindows.luaforge.net/">Lua for Windows</A>, |
| an easy-to-use distribution of Lua that includes many useful libraries. |
| |
| <H3>Building Lua</H3> |
| |
| <P> |
| In most Unix-like platforms, simply do "<KBD>make</KBD>" with a suitable target. |
| Here are the details. |
| |
| <OL> |
| <LI> |
| Open a terminal window and move to |
| the top-level directory, which is named <TT>lua-5.2.2</TT>. |
| The Makefile there controls both the build process and the installation process. |
| <P> |
| <LI> |
| Do "<KBD>make</KBD>" and see if your platform is listed. |
| The platforms currently supported are: |
| <P> |
| <P CLASS="display"> |
| aix ansi bsd freebsd generic linux macosx mingw posix solaris |
| </P> |
| <P> |
| If your platform is listed, just do "<KBD>make xxx</KBD>", where xxx |
| is your platform name. |
| <P> |
| If your platform is not listed, try the closest one or posix, generic, |
| ansi, in this order. |
| <P> |
| <LI> |
| The compilation takes only a few moments |
| and produces three files in the <TT>src</TT> directory: |
| lua (the interpreter), |
| luac (the compiler), |
| and liblua.a (the library). |
| <P> |
| <LI> |
| To check that Lua has been built correctly, do "<KBD>make test</KBD>" |
| after building Lua. This will run the interpreter and print its version string. |
| </OL> |
| <P> |
| If you're running Linux and get compilation errors, |
| make sure you have installed the <TT>readline</TT> development package. |
| If you get link errors after that, |
| then try "<KBD>make linux MYLIBS=-ltermcap</KBD>". |
| |
| <H3>Installing Lua</H3> |
| <P> |
| Once you have built Lua, you may want to install it in an official |
| place in your system. In this case, do "<KBD>make install</KBD>". The official |
| place and the way to install files are defined in the Makefile. You'll |
| probably need the right permissions to install files. |
| |
| <P> |
| To build and install Lua in one step, do "<KBD>make xxx install</KBD>", |
| where xxx is your platform name. |
| |
| <P> |
| To install Lua locally, do "<KBD>make local</KBD>". |
| This will create a directory <TT>install</TT> with subdirectories |
| <TT>bin</TT>, <TT>include</TT>, <TT>lib</TT>, <TT>man</TT>, |
| and install Lua as listed below. |
| |
| To install Lua locally, but in some other directory, do |
| "<KBD>make install INSTALL_TOP=xxx</KBD>", where xxx is your chosen directory. |
| |
| <DL CLASS="display"> |
| <DT> |
| bin: |
| <DD> |
| lua luac |
| <DT> |
| include: |
| <DD> |
| lua.h luaconf.h lualib.h lauxlib.h lua.hpp |
| <DT> |
| lib: |
| <DD> |
| liblua.a |
| <DT> |
| man/man1: |
| <DD> |
| lua.1 luac.1 |
| </DL> |
| |
| <P> |
| These are the only directories you need for development. |
| If you only want to run Lua programs, |
| you only need the files in bin and man. |
| The files in include and lib are needed for |
| embedding Lua in C or C++ programs. |
| |
| <H3><A NAME="customization">Customization</A></H3> |
| <P> |
| Three kinds of things can be customized by editing a file: |
| <UL> |
| <LI> Where and how to install Lua — edit <TT>Makefile</TT>. |
| <LI> How to build Lua — edit <TT>src/Makefile</TT>. |
| <LI> Lua features — edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT>. |
| </UL> |
| |
| <P> |
| You don't actually need to edit the Makefiles because you may set the |
| relevant variables in the command line when invoking make. |
| Nevertheless, it's probably best to edit and save the Makefiles to |
| record the changes you need. |
| |
| <P> |
| On the other hand, if you need to customize some Lua features, you'll need |
| to edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT> before building and installing Lua. |
| The edited file will be the one installed, and |
| it will be used by any Lua clients that you build, to ensure consistency. |
| Further customization is available to experts by editing the Lua sources. |
| |
| <P> |
| We strongly recommend that you enable dynamic loading in <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT>. |
| This is done automatically for all platforms listed above that have |
| this feature and also for Windows. |
| |
| <H3><A NAME="other">Building Lua on other systems</A></H3> |
| |
| <P> |
| If you're not using the usual Unix tools, then the instructions for |
| building Lua depend on the compiler you use. You'll need to create |
| projects (or whatever your compiler uses) for building the library, |
| the interpreter, and the compiler, as follows: |
| |
| <DL CLASS="display"> |
| <DT> |
| library: |
| <DD> |
| lapi.c lcode.c lctype.c ldebug.c ldo.c ldump.c lfunc.c lgc.c llex.c |
| lmem.c lobject.c lopcodes.c lparser.c lstate.c lstring.c ltable.c |
| ltm.c lundump.c lvm.c lzio.c |
| lauxlib.c lbaselib.c lbitlib.c lcorolib.c ldblib.c liolib.c |
| lmathlib.c loslib.c lstrlib.c ltablib.c loadlib.c linit.c |
| <DT> |
| interpreter: |
| <DD> |
| library, lua.c |
| <DT> |
| compiler: |
| <DD> |
| library, luac.c |
| </DL> |
| |
| <P> |
| To use Lua as a library in your own programs you'll need to know how to |
| create and use libraries with your compiler. Moreover, to dynamically load |
| C libraries for Lua you'll need to know how to create dynamic libraries |
| and you'll need to make sure that the Lua API functions are accessible to |
| those dynamic libraries — but <EM>don't</EM> link the Lua library |
| into each dynamic library. For Unix, we recommend that the Lua library |
| be linked statically into the host program and its symbols exported for |
| dynamic linking; <TT>src/Makefile</TT> does this for the Lua interpreter. |
| For Windows, we recommend that the Lua library be a DLL. |
| |
| <P> |
| As mentioned above, you may edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT> to customize |
| some features before building Lua. |
| |
| <H2><A NAME="changes">Changes since Lua 5.1</A></H2> |
| |
| <P> |
| Here are the main changes introduced in Lua 5.2. |
| The |
| <A HREF="contents.html">reference manual</A> |
| lists the |
| <A HREF="manual.html#8">incompatibilities</A> that had to be introduced. |
| |
| <H3>Main changes</H3> |
| <UL> |
| <LI> yieldable pcall and metamethods |
| <LI> new lexical scheme for globals |
| <LI> ephemeron tables |
| <LI> new library for bitwise operations |
| <LI> light C functions |
| <LI> emergency garbage collector |
| <LI> <CODE>goto</CODE> statement |
| <LI> finalizers for tables |
| </UL> |
| |
| Here are the other changes introduced in Lua 5.2: |
| <H3>Language</H3> |
| <UL> |
| <LI> no more fenv for threads or functions |
| <LI> tables honor the <CODE>__len</CODE> metamethod |
| <LI> hex and <CODE>\z</CODE> escapes in strings |
| <LI> support for hexadecimal floats |
| <LI> order metamethods work for different types |
| <LI> no more verification of opcode consistency |
| <LI> hook event "tail return" replaced by "tail call" |
| <LI> empty statement |
| <LI> <CODE>break</CODE> statement may appear in the middle of a block |
| </UL> |
| |
| <H3>Libraries</H3> |
| <UL> |
| <LI> arguments for function called through <CODE>xpcall</CODE> |
| <LI> optional 'mode' argument to load and loadfile (to control binary x text) |
| <LI> optional 'env' argument to load and loadfile (environment for loaded chunk) |
| <LI> <CODE>loadlib</CODE> may load libraries with global names (RTLD_GLOBAL) |
| <LI> new function <CODE>package.searchpath</CODE> |
| <LI> modules receive their paths when loaded |
| <LI> optional base in <CODE>math.log</CODE> |
| <LI> optional separator in <CODE>string.rep</CODE> |
| <LI> <CODE>file:write</CODE> returns <CODE>file</CODE> |
| <LI> closing a pipe returns exit status |
| <LI> <CODE>os.exit</CODE> may close state |
| <LI> new metamethods <CODE>__pairs</CODE> and <CODE>__ipairs</CODE> |
| <LI> new option 'isrunning' for <CODE>collectgarbage</CODE> and <CODE>lua_gc</CODE> |
| <LI> frontier patterns |
| <LI> <CODE>\0</CODE> in patterns |
| <LI> new option <CODE>*L</CODE> for <CODE>io.read</CODE> |
| <LI> options for <CODE>io.lines</CODE> |
| <LI> <CODE>debug.getlocal</CODE> can access function varargs |
| </UL> |
| |
| <H3>C API</H3> |
| <UL> |
| <LI> main thread predefined in the registry |
| <LI> new functions |
| <CODE>lua_absindex</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_arith</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_compare</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_copy</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_len</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_rawgetp</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_rawsetp</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_upvalueid</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_upvaluejoin</CODE>, |
| <CODE>lua_version</CODE>. |
| <LI> new functions |
| <CODE>luaL_checkversion</CODE>, |
| <CODE>luaL_setmetatable</CODE>, |
| <CODE>luaL_testudata</CODE>, |
| <CODE>luaL_tolstring</CODE>. |
| <LI> <CODE>lua_pushstring</CODE> and <CODE>pushlstring</CODE> return string |
| <LI> <CODE>nparams</CODE> and <CODE>isvararg</CODE> available in debug API |
| <LI> new <CODE>lua_Unsigned</CODE> |
| </UL> |
| |
| <H3>Implementation</H3> |
| <UL> |
| <LI> max constants per function raised to 2<SUP>26</SUP> |
| <LI> generational mode for garbage collection (experimental) |
| <LI> NaN trick (experimental) |
| <LI> internal (immutable) version of ctypes |
| <LI> simpler implementation for string buffers |
| <LI> parser uses much less C-stack space (no more auto arrays) |
| </UL> |
| |
| <H3>Lua standalone interpreter</H3> |
| <UL> |
| <LI> new <CODE>-E</CODE> option to avoid environment variables |
| <LI> handling of non-string error messages |
| </UL> |
| |
| <H2><A NAME="license">License</A></H2> |
| <A HREF="http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php"> |
| <IMG SRC="osi-certified-72x60.png" ALIGN="right" BORDER="0" ALT="[osi certified]" STYLE="padding-left: 30px ;"> |
| </A> |
| |
| <P> |
| Lua is free software distributed under the terms of the |
| <A HREF="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT license</A> |
| reproduced below; |
| it may be used for any purpose, including commercial purposes, |
| at absolutely no cost without having to ask us. |
| |
| The only requirement is that if you do use Lua, |
| then you should give us credit by including the appropriate copyright notice somewhere in your product or its documentation. |
| |
| For details, see |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/license.html">this</A>. |
| |
| <BLOCKQUOTE STYLE="padding-bottom: 0em"> |
| Copyright © 1994–2013 Lua.org, PUC-Rio. |
| |
| <P> |
| Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy |
| of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal |
| in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights |
| to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell |
| copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is |
| furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: |
| |
| <P> |
| The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in |
| all copies or substantial portions of the Software. |
| |
| <P> |
| THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR |
| IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, |
| FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE |
| AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER |
| LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, |
| OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN |
| THE SOFTWARE. |
| </BLOCKQUOTE> |
| <P> |
| |
| <HR> |
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| Last update: |
| Fri Feb 22 09:24:20 BRT 2013 |
| </SMALL> |
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