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| <H1> |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/"><IMG SRC="logo.gif" ALT="Lua"></A> |
| Welcome to Lua 5.4 |
| </H1> |
| |
| <DIV CLASS="menubar"> |
| <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> |
| </DIV> |
| |
| <H2><A NAME="about">About Lua</A></H2> |
| <P> |
| Lua is a powerful, efficient, 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 |
| <A HREF="http://www.lua.org/uses.html">many products and projects</A> |
| 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/5.4/">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, |
| such as Linux and Mac OS X. |
| 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://luadist.org/">LuaDist</A>, |
| a multi-platform distribution of Lua that includes batteries. |
| |
| <H3>Building Lua</H3> |
| <P> |
| In most common Unix-like platforms, simply do "<KBD>make</KBD>". |
| Here are the details. |
| |
| <OL> |
| <LI> |
| Open a terminal window and move to |
| the top-level directory, which is named <TT>lua-5.4.1</TT>. |
| The <TT>Makefile</TT> there controls both the build process and the installation process. |
| <P> |
| <LI> |
| Do "<KBD>make</KBD>". The <TT>Makefile</TT> will guess your platform and build Lua for it. |
| <P> |
| <LI> |
| If the guess failed, do "<KBD>make help</KBD>" and see if your platform is listed. |
| The platforms currently supported are: |
| <P> |
| <P CLASS="display"> |
| guess aix bsd c89 freebsd generic linux linux-readline 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, |
| c89, 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. |
| </OL> |
| <P> |
| If you're running Linux, try "<KBD>make linux-readline</KBD>" to build the interactive Lua interpreter with handy line-editing and history capabilities. |
| If you get compilation errors, |
| make sure you have installed the <TT>readline</TT> development package |
| (which is probably named <TT>libreadline-dev</TT> or <TT>readline-devel</TT>). |
| If you get link errors after that, |
| then try "<KBD>make linux-readline 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 <TT>Makefile</TT>. You'll |
| probably need the right permissions to install files, and so may need to do "<KBD>sudo make install</KBD>". |
| |
| <P> |
| To build and install Lua in one step, do "<KBD>make all install</KBD>", |
| or "<KBD>make xxx install</KBD>", |
| where xxx is your platform name. |
| |
| <P> |
| To install Lua locally after building it, 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>, <TT>share</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. |
| The installation starts in the <TT>src</TT> and <TT>doc</TT> directories, |
| so take care if <TT>INSTALL_TOP</TT> is not an absolute path. |
| |
| <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 <TT>bin</TT> and <TT>man</TT>. |
| The files in <TT>include</TT> and <TT>lib</TT> 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've made. |
| |
| <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. |
| |
| <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 lcorolib.c ldblib.c liolib.c lmathlib.c loadlib.c loslib.c lstrlib.c ltablib.c lutf8lib.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. |
| In all cases, the compiler luac should be linked statically. |
| |
| <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 5.3</A></H2> |
| <P> |
| Here are the main changes introduced in Lua 5.4. |
| 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> new generational mode for garbage collection |
| <LI> to-be-closed variables |
| <LI> const variables |
| <LI> userdata can have multiple user values |
| <LI> new implementation for math.random |
| <LI> warning system |
| <LI> debug information about function arguments and returns |
| <LI> new semantics for the integer 'for' loop |
| <LI> optional 'init' argument to 'string.gmatch' |
| <LI> new functions 'lua_resetthread' and 'coroutine.close' |
| <LI> string-to-number coercions moved to the string library |
| <LI> allocation function allowed to fail when shrinking a memory block |
| <LI> new format '%p' in 'string.format' |
| <LI> utf8 library accepts codepoints up to 2^31 |
| </UL> |
| |
| <H2><A NAME="license">License</A></H2> |
| <P> |
| <A HREF="http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php"> |
| <IMG SRC="osi-certified-72x60.png" ALIGN="right" ALT="[osi certified]" STYLE="padding-left: 30px ;"> |
| </A> |
| 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 © 1994–2020 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> |
| |
| <P CLASS="footer"> |
| Last update: |
| Wed Sep 30 09:55:45 UTC 2020 |
| </P> |
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