1<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> 2<HTML> 3<HEAD> 4<TITLE>Lua 5.4 readme</TITLE> 5<LINK REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" HREF="lua.css"> 6<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> 7<STYLE TYPE="text/css"> 8blockquote, .display { 9 border: solid #a0a0a0 2px ; 10 border-radius: 8px ; 11 padding: 1em ; 12 margin: 0px ; 13} 14 15.display { 16 word-spacing: 0.25em ; 17} 18 19dl.display dd { 20 padding-bottom: 0.2em ; 21} 22 23tt, kbd, code { 24 font-size: 12pt ; 25} 26</STYLE> 27</HEAD> 28 29<BODY> 30 31<H1> 32<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/"><IMG SRC="logo.gif" ALT="Lua"></A> 33Welcome to Lua 5.4 34</H1> 35 36<DIV CLASS="menubar"> 37<A HREF="#about">about</A> 38· 39<A HREF="#install">installation</A> 40· 41<A HREF="#changes">changes</A> 42· 43<A HREF="#license">license</A> 44· 45<A HREF="contents.html">reference manual</A> 46</DIV> 47 48<H2><A NAME="about">About Lua</A></H2> 49<P> 50Lua is a powerful, efficient, lightweight, embeddable scripting language 51developed by a 52<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/authors.html">team</A> 53at 54<A HREF="http://www.puc-rio.br/">PUC-Rio</A>, 55the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. 56Lua is 57<A HREF="#license">free software</A> 58used in 59<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/uses.html">many products and projects</A> 60around the world. 61 62<P> 63Lua's 64<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/">official web site</A> 65provides complete information 66about Lua, 67including 68an 69<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/about.html">executive summary</A> 70and 71updated 72<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/docs.html">documentation</A>, 73especially the 74<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/manual/5.4/">reference manual</A>, 75which may differ slightly from the 76<A HREF="contents.html">local copy</A> 77distributed in this package. 78 79<H2><A NAME="install">Installing Lua</A></H2> 80<P> 81Lua is distributed in 82<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/ftp/">source</A> 83form. 84You need to build it before using it. 85Building Lua should be straightforward 86because 87Lua is implemented in pure ANSI C and compiles unmodified in all known 88platforms that have an ANSI C compiler. 89Lua also compiles unmodified as C++. 90The instructions given below for building Lua are for Unix-like platforms, 91such as Linux and Mac OS X. 92See also 93<A HREF="#other">instructions for other systems</A> 94and 95<A HREF="#customization">customization options</A>. 96 97<P> 98If you don't have the time or the inclination to compile Lua yourself, 99get a binary from 100<A HREF="http://lua-users.org/wiki/LuaBinaries">LuaBinaries</A>. 101Try also 102<A HREF="http://luadist.org/">LuaDist</A>, 103a multi-platform distribution of Lua that includes batteries. 104 105<H3>Building Lua</H3> 106<P> 107In most common Unix-like platforms, simply do "<KBD>make</KBD>". 108Here are the details. 109 110<OL> 111<LI> 112Open a terminal window and move to 113the top-level directory, which is named <TT>lua-5.4.3</TT>. 114The <TT>Makefile</TT> there controls both the build process and the installation process. 115<P> 116<LI> 117 Do "<KBD>make</KBD>". The <TT>Makefile</TT> will guess your platform and build Lua for it. 118<P> 119<LI> 120 If the guess failed, do "<KBD>make help</KBD>" and see if your platform is listed. 121 The platforms currently supported are: 122<P> 123<P CLASS="display"> 124 guess aix bsd c89 freebsd generic linux linux-readline macosx mingw posix solaris 125</P> 126<P> 127 If your platform is listed, just do "<KBD>make xxx</KBD>", where xxx 128 is your platform name. 129<P> 130 If your platform is not listed, try the closest one or posix, generic, 131 c89, in this order. 132<P> 133<LI> 134The compilation takes only a few moments 135and produces three files in the <TT>src</TT> directory: 136lua (the interpreter), 137luac (the compiler), 138and liblua.a (the library). 139<P> 140<LI> 141 To check that Lua has been built correctly, do "<KBD>make test</KBD>" 142 after building Lua. This will run the interpreter and print its version. 143</OL> 144<P> 145If you're running Linux, try "<KBD>make linux-readline</KBD>" to build the interactive Lua interpreter with handy line-editing and history capabilities. 146If you get compilation errors, 147make sure you have installed the <TT>readline</TT> development package 148(which is probably named <TT>libreadline-dev</TT> or <TT>readline-devel</TT>). 149If you get link errors after that, 150then try "<KBD>make linux-readline MYLIBS=-ltermcap</KBD>". 151 152<H3>Installing Lua</H3> 153<P> 154 Once you have built Lua, you may want to install it in an official 155 place in your system. In this case, do "<KBD>make install</KBD>". The official 156 place and the way to install files are defined in the <TT>Makefile</TT>. You'll 157 probably need the right permissions to install files, and so may need to do "<KBD>sudo make install</KBD>". 158 159<P> 160 To build and install Lua in one step, do "<KBD>make all install</KBD>", 161 or "<KBD>make xxx install</KBD>", 162 where xxx is your platform name. 163 164<P> 165 To install Lua locally after building it, do "<KBD>make local</KBD>". 166 This will create a directory <TT>install</TT> with subdirectories 167 <TT>bin</TT>, <TT>include</TT>, <TT>lib</TT>, <TT>man</TT>, <TT>share</TT>, 168 and install Lua as listed below. 169 170 To install Lua locally, but in some other directory, do 171 "<KBD>make install INSTALL_TOP=xxx</KBD>", where xxx is your chosen directory. 172 The installation starts in the <TT>src</TT> and <TT>doc</TT> directories, 173 so take care if <TT>INSTALL_TOP</TT> is not an absolute path. 174 175<DL CLASS="display"> 176<DT> 177 bin: 178<DD> 179 lua luac 180<DT> 181 include: 182<DD> 183 lua.h luaconf.h lualib.h lauxlib.h lua.hpp 184<DT> 185 lib: 186<DD> 187 liblua.a 188<DT> 189 man/man1: 190<DD> 191 lua.1 luac.1 192</DL> 193 194<P> 195 These are the only directories you need for development. 196 If you only want to run Lua programs, 197 you only need the files in <TT>bin</TT> and <TT>man</TT>. 198 The files in <TT>include</TT> and <TT>lib</TT> are needed for 199 embedding Lua in C or C++ programs. 200 201<H3><A NAME="customization">Customization</A></H3> 202<P> 203 Three kinds of things can be customized by editing a file: 204<UL> 205 <LI> Where and how to install Lua — edit <TT>Makefile</TT>. 206 <LI> How to build Lua — edit <TT>src/Makefile</TT>. 207 <LI> Lua features — edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT>. 208</UL> 209 210<P> 211 You don't actually need to edit the Makefiles because you may set the 212 relevant variables in the command line when invoking make. 213 Nevertheless, it's probably best to edit and save the Makefiles to 214 record the changes you've made. 215 216<P> 217 On the other hand, if you need to customize some Lua features, you'll need 218 to edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT> before building and installing Lua. 219 The edited file will be the one installed, and 220 it will be used by any Lua clients that you build, to ensure consistency. 221 Further customization is available to experts by editing the Lua sources. 222 223<H3><A NAME="other">Building Lua on other systems</A></H3> 224<P> 225 If you're not using the usual Unix tools, then the instructions for 226 building Lua depend on the compiler you use. You'll need to create 227 projects (or whatever your compiler uses) for building the library, 228 the interpreter, and the compiler, as follows: 229 230<DL CLASS="display"> 231<DT> 232library: 233<DD> 234lapi.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 235lauxlib.c lbaselib.c lcorolib.c ldblib.c liolib.c lmathlib.c loadlib.c loslib.c lstrlib.c ltablib.c lutf8lib.c linit.c 236<DT> 237interpreter: 238<DD> 239 library, lua.c 240<DT> 241compiler: 242<DD> 243 library, luac.c 244</DL> 245 246<P> 247 To use Lua as a library in your own programs, you'll need to know how to 248 create and use libraries with your compiler. Moreover, to dynamically load 249 C libraries for Lua, you'll need to know how to create dynamic libraries 250 and you'll need to make sure that the Lua API functions are accessible to 251 those dynamic libraries — but <EM>don't</EM> link the Lua library 252 into each dynamic library. For Unix, we recommend that the Lua library 253 be linked statically into the host program and its symbols exported for 254 dynamic linking; <TT>src/Makefile</TT> does this for the Lua interpreter. 255 For Windows, we recommend that the Lua library be a DLL. 256 In all cases, the compiler luac should be linked statically. 257 258<P> 259 As mentioned above, you may edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT> to customize 260 some features before building Lua. 261 262<H2><A NAME="changes">Changes since Lua 5.3</A></H2> 263<P> 264Here are the main changes introduced in Lua 5.4. 265The 266<A HREF="contents.html">reference manual</A> 267lists the 268<A HREF="manual.html#8">incompatibilities</A> that had to be introduced. 269 270<H3>Main changes</H3> 271<UL> 272<LI> new generational mode for garbage collection 273<LI> to-be-closed variables 274<LI> const variables 275<LI> userdata can have multiple user values 276<LI> new implementation for math.random 277<LI> warning system 278<LI> debug information about function arguments and returns 279<LI> new semantics for the integer 'for' loop 280<LI> optional 'init' argument to 'string.gmatch' 281<LI> new functions 'lua_resetthread' and 'coroutine.close' 282<LI> string-to-number coercions moved to the string library 283<LI> allocation function allowed to fail when shrinking a memory block 284<LI> new format '%p' in 'string.format' 285<LI> utf8 library accepts codepoints up to 2^31 286</UL> 287 288<H2><A NAME="license">License</A></H2> 289<P> 290<A HREF="http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php"> 291<IMG SRC="osi-certified-72x60.png" ALIGN="right" ALT="[osi certified]" STYLE="padding-left: 30px ;"> 292</A> 293Lua is free software distributed under the terms of the 294<A HREF="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT license</A> 295reproduced below; 296it may be used for any purpose, including commercial purposes, 297at absolutely no cost without having to ask us. 298 299The only requirement is that if you do use Lua, 300then you should give us credit by including the appropriate copyright notice somewhere in your product or its documentation. 301 302For details, see 303<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/license.html">this</A>. 304 305<BLOCKQUOTE STYLE="padding-bottom: 0em"> 306Copyright © 1994–2021 Lua.org, PUC-Rio. 307 308<P> 309Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy 310of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal 311in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights 312to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell 313copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is 314furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 315 316<P> 317The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in 318all copies or substantial portions of the Software. 319 320<P> 321THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR 322IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, 323FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 324AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER 325LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, 326OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN 327THE SOFTWARE. 328</BLOCKQUOTE> 329<P> 330 331<P CLASS="footer"> 332Last update: 333Wed Mar 3 10:16:26 UTC 2021 334</P> 335<!-- 336Last change: revised for Lua 5.4.3 337--> 338 339</BODY> 340</HTML> 341
