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>. 101 102<H3>Building Lua</H3> 103<P> 104In most common Unix-like platforms, simply do "<KBD>make</KBD>". 105Here are the details. 106 107<OL> 108<LI> 109Open a terminal window and move to 110the top-level directory, which is named <TT>lua-5.4.6</TT>. 111The <TT>Makefile</TT> there controls both the build process and the installation process. 112<P> 113<LI> 114 Do "<KBD>make</KBD>". The <TT>Makefile</TT> will guess your platform and build Lua for it. 115<P> 116<LI> 117 If the guess failed, do "<KBD>make help</KBD>" and see if your platform is listed. 118 The platforms currently supported are: 119<P> 120<P CLASS="display"> 121 guess aix bsd c89 freebsd generic ios linux linux-readline macosx mingw posix solaris 122</P> 123<P> 124 If your platform is listed, just do "<KBD>make xxx</KBD>", where xxx 125 is your platform name. 126<P> 127 If your platform is not listed, try the closest one or posix, generic, 128 c89, in this order. 129<P> 130<LI> 131The compilation takes only a few moments 132and produces three files in the <TT>src</TT> directory: 133lua (the interpreter), 134luac (the compiler), 135and liblua.a (the library). 136<P> 137<LI> 138 To check that Lua has been built correctly, do "<KBD>make test</KBD>" 139 after building Lua. This will run the interpreter and print its version. 140</OL> 141<P> 142If you're running Linux, try "<KBD>make linux-readline</KBD>" to build the interactive Lua interpreter with handy line-editing and history capabilities. 143If you get compilation errors, 144make sure you have installed the <TT>readline</TT> development package 145(which is probably named <TT>libreadline-dev</TT> or <TT>readline-devel</TT>). 146If you get link errors after that, 147then try "<KBD>make linux-readline MYLIBS=-ltermcap</KBD>". 148 149<H3>Installing Lua</H3> 150<P> 151 Once you have built Lua, you may want to install it in an official 152 place in your system. In this case, do "<KBD>make install</KBD>". The official 153 place and the way to install files are defined in the <TT>Makefile</TT>. You'll 154 probably need the right permissions to install files, and so may need to do "<KBD>sudo make install</KBD>". 155 156<P> 157 To build and install Lua in one step, do "<KBD>make all install</KBD>", 158 or "<KBD>make xxx install</KBD>", 159 where xxx is your platform name. 160 161<P> 162 To install Lua locally after building it, do "<KBD>make local</KBD>". 163 This will create a directory <TT>install</TT> with subdirectories 164 <TT>bin</TT>, <TT>include</TT>, <TT>lib</TT>, <TT>man</TT>, <TT>share</TT>, 165 and install Lua as listed below. 166 167 To install Lua locally, but in some other directory, do 168 "<KBD>make install INSTALL_TOP=xxx</KBD>", where xxx is your chosen directory. 169 The installation starts in the <TT>src</TT> and <TT>doc</TT> directories, 170 so take care if <TT>INSTALL_TOP</TT> is not an absolute path. 171 172<DL CLASS="display"> 173<DT> 174 bin: 175<DD> 176 lua luac 177<DT> 178 include: 179<DD> 180 lua.h luaconf.h lualib.h lauxlib.h lua.hpp 181<DT> 182 lib: 183<DD> 184 liblua.a 185<DT> 186 man/man1: 187<DD> 188 lua.1 luac.1 189</DL> 190 191<P> 192 These are the only directories you need for development. 193 If you only want to run Lua programs, 194 you only need the files in <TT>bin</TT> and <TT>man</TT>. 195 The files in <TT>include</TT> and <TT>lib</TT> are needed for 196 embedding Lua in C or C++ programs. 197 198<H3><A NAME="customization">Customization</A></H3> 199<P> 200 Three kinds of things can be customized by editing a file: 201<UL> 202 <LI> Where and how to install Lua — edit <TT>Makefile</TT>. 203 <LI> How to build Lua — edit <TT>src/Makefile</TT>. 204 <LI> Lua features — edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT>. 205</UL> 206 207<P> 208 You don't actually need to edit the Makefiles because you may set the 209 relevant variables in the command line when invoking make. 210 Nevertheless, it's probably best to edit and save the Makefiles to 211 record the changes you've made. 212 213<P> 214 On the other hand, if you need to customize some Lua features, you'll need 215 to edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT> before building and installing Lua. 216 The edited file will be the one installed, and 217 it will be used by any Lua clients that you build, to ensure consistency. 218 Further customization is available to experts by editing the Lua sources. 219 220<H3><A NAME="other">Building Lua on other systems</A></H3> 221<P> 222 If you're not using the usual Unix tools, then the instructions for 223 building Lua depend on the compiler you use. You'll need to create 224 projects (or whatever your compiler uses) for building the library, 225 the interpreter, and the compiler, as follows: 226 227<DL CLASS="display"> 228<DT> 229library: 230<DD> 231lapi.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 232lauxlib.c lbaselib.c lcorolib.c ldblib.c liolib.c lmathlib.c loadlib.c loslib.c lstrlib.c ltablib.c lutf8lib.c linit.c 233<DT> 234interpreter: 235<DD> 236 library, lua.c 237<DT> 238compiler: 239<DD> 240 library, luac.c 241</DL> 242 243<P> 244 To use Lua as a library in your own programs, you'll need to know how to 245 create and use libraries with your compiler. Moreover, to dynamically load 246 C libraries for Lua, you'll need to know how to create dynamic libraries 247 and you'll need to make sure that the Lua API functions are accessible to 248 those dynamic libraries — but <EM>don't</EM> link the Lua library 249 into each dynamic library. For Unix, we recommend that the Lua library 250 be linked statically into the host program and its symbols exported for 251 dynamic linking; <TT>src/Makefile</TT> does this for the Lua interpreter. 252 For Windows, we recommend that the Lua library be a DLL. 253 In all cases, the compiler luac should be linked statically. 254 255<P> 256 As mentioned above, you may edit <TT>src/luaconf.h</TT> to customize 257 some features before building Lua. 258 259<H2><A NAME="changes">Changes since Lua 5.3</A></H2> 260<P> 261Here are the main changes introduced in Lua 5.4. 262The 263<A HREF="contents.html">reference manual</A> 264lists the 265<A HREF="manual.html#8">incompatibilities</A> that had to be introduced. 266 267<H3>Main changes</H3> 268<UL> 269<LI> new generational mode for garbage collection 270<LI> to-be-closed variables 271<LI> const variables 272<LI> userdata can have multiple user values 273<LI> new implementation for math.random 274<LI> warning system 275<LI> debug information about function arguments and returns 276<LI> new semantics for the integer 'for' loop 277<LI> optional 'init' argument to 'string.gmatch' 278<LI> new functions 'lua_resetthread' and 'coroutine.close' 279<LI> string-to-number coercions moved to the string library 280<LI> allocation function allowed to fail when shrinking a memory block 281<LI> new format '%p' in 'string.format' 282<LI> utf8 library accepts codepoints up to 2^31 283</UL> 284 285<H2><A NAME="license">License</A></H2> 286<P> 287<A HREF="http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php"> 288<IMG SRC="osi-certified-72x60.png" ALIGN="right" ALT="[osi certified]" STYLE="padding-left: 30px ;"> 289</A> 290Lua is free software distributed under the terms of the 291<A HREF="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html">MIT license</A> 292reproduced below; 293it may be used for any purpose, including commercial purposes, 294at absolutely no cost without having to ask us. 295 296The only requirement is that if you do use Lua, 297then you should give us credit by including the appropriate copyright notice somewhere in your product or its documentation. 298 299For details, see 300<A HREF="http://www.lua.org/license.html">this</A>. 301 302<BLOCKQUOTE STYLE="padding-bottom: 0em"> 303Copyright © 1994–2023 Lua.org, PUC-Rio. 304 305<P> 306Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy 307of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal 308in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights 309to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell 310copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is 311furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: 312 313<P> 314The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in 315all copies or substantial portions of the Software. 316 317<P> 318THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR 319IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, 320FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE 321AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER 322LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, 323OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN 324THE SOFTWARE. 325</BLOCKQUOTE> 326<P> 327 328<P CLASS="footer"> 329Last update: 330Tue May 2 20:08:55 UTC 2023 331</P> 332<!-- 333Last change: revised for Lua 5.4.6 334--> 335 336</BODY> 337</HTML> 338
