Lua

Lua is a powerful, fast, lightweight, embeddable scripting language.

Lua combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, runs by interpreting bytecode for a register-based virtual machine, and has automatic memory management with incremental garbage collection, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping.

Runs on both FAT and HPFS file systems.

Please note that Lua is a noun and not an acronym, it is the Portuguese form of "Luna", or the Portuguese word for the moon in other words and should not be spelled all caps.

Alternative implementations

• lua.js - A somewhat rudimentary but functional Lua on top of ECMAScript

Foreign libraries with Lua bindings

Open Source

• Cairo - 2D graphics library
• LibcURL - Internet URL (WWW, FTP, etc) access
• LZ4 - Compression library
• Simple Directmedia Layer - Multimedia
• Snappy - Compression library

Programmer's utilities

• Exuberant ctags - Creates index files out of Lua source files - Open source

Editor support

• jEdit - Java based editor - Lua syntax highlighting built in

Version

• 5.1.4 (2009)- requires EMX
• 5.1.5 (2014)
• 5.3.5 (2018-07-14)

License and availability

• Open source software released under the MIT license

Authors

• Roberto Ierusalimschy (Original author)
• Alexander Walz (OS/2 port)

Publications

• Kurt Jung, Aaron Brown: Beginning Lua Programming - Wrox 2007, ISBN 0-470-06917-1
• Roberto Ierusalimschy, L. H. de Figueiredo, W. Celes, et al.: Lua 5.2x Reference manual

Links

• Lua official homepage: http://www.lua.org