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                           Lua (programming language)

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   The article is about the Lua programming language itself. For its use in
   Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Lua.

   Lua (/ˈluːə/ LOO-ə; from Portuguese: lua [ˈlu.(w)ɐ] meaning moon) is a
   lightweight, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language designed
   primarily for embedded use in applications.^[3] Lua is cross-platform,
   since the interpreter of compiled bytecode is written in ANSI C,^[4] and
   Lua has a relatively simple C API to embed it into applications.^[5]

                                      Lua
   Lua-Logo.svg            
                           Multi-paradigm: scripting, imperative (procedural, 
   Paradigm                prototype-based, object-oriented), functional,     
                           meta, reflective                                   
                           Roberto Ierusalimschy                              
   Designed by             Waldemar Celes                                     
                           Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo                        
   First appeared          1993; 29 years ago                                 
   Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
   Stable release          5.4.4^[1] Edit this on Wikidata / 26 January 2022; 
                           2 months ago                                       
   Typing discipline       Dynamic, strong, duck                              
   Implementation language ANSI C                                             
   OS                      Cross-platform                                     
   License                 MIT License                                        
   Filename extensions     .lua                                               
   Website                 www.lua.org Edit this at Wikidata                  
   Major implementations   
   Lua, LuaJIT, LuaVela, MoonSharp, Luvit, LuaRT, Luau
   Dialects                
   Metalua, Idle, GSL Shell
   Influenced by           
   C++, CLU, Modula, Scheme, SNOBOL
   Influenced              
   GameMonkey, Io, JavaScript, Julia, MiniD, Red, Ring,^[2] Ruby, Squirrel,
   MoonScript, C--         

   Lua was originally designed in 1993 as a language for extending software
   applications to meet the increasing demand for customization at the time.
   It provided the basic facilities of most procedural programming languages,
   but more complicated or domain-specific features were not included;
   rather, it included mechanisms for extending the language, allowing
   programmers to implement such features. As Lua was intended to be a
   general embeddable extension language, the designers of Lua focused on
   improving its speed, portability, extensibility, and ease-of-use in
   development.

Contents

     * 1 History
     * 2 Features
          * 2.1 Syntax
          * 2.2 Control flow
          * 2.3 Functions
          * 2.4 Tables
          * 2.5 Metatables
          * 2.6 Object-oriented programming
               * 2.6.1 Inheritance
     * 3 Implementation
     * 4 C API
     * 5 Applications
     * 6 Derived languages
          * 6.1 Languages that compile to Lua
          * 6.2 Dialects
     * 7 See also
     * 8 References
     * 9 Further reading
     * 10 External links

HistoryEdit

   Lua was created in 1993 by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de
   Figueiredo, and Waldemar Celes, members of the Computer Graphics
   Technology Group (Tecgraf) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de
   Janeiro, in Brazil.

   From 1977 until 1992, Brazil had a policy of strong trade barriers (called
   a market reserve) for computer hardware and software. In that atmosphere,
   Tecgraf's clients could not afford, either politically or financially, to
   buy customized software from abroad. Those reasons led Tecgraf to
   implement the basic tools it needed from scratch.^[6]

   Lua's predecessors were the data-description/configuration languages SOL
   (Simple Object Language) and DEL (data-entry language).^[7] They had been
   independently developed at Tecgraf in 1992–1993 to add some flexibility
   into two different projects (both were interactive graphical programs for
   engineering applications at Petrobras company). There was a lack of any
   flow-control structures in SOL and DEL, and Petrobras felt a growing need
   to add full programming power to them.

   In The Evolution of Lua, the language's authors wrote:^[6]

     In 1993, the only real contender was Tcl, which had been explicitly
     designed to be embedded into applications. However, Tcl had unfamiliar
     syntax, did not offer good support for data description, and ran only on
     Unix platforms. We did not consider LISP or Scheme because of their
     unfriendly syntax. Python was still in its infancy. In the free,
     do-it-yourself atmosphere that then reigned in Tecgraf, it was quite
     natural that we should try to develop our own scripting language ...
     Because many potential users of the language were not professional
     programmers, the language should avoid cryptic syntax and semantics. The
     implementation of the new language should be highly portable, because
     Tecgraf's clients had a very diverse collection of computer platforms.
     Finally, since we expected that other Tecgraf products would also need
     to embed a scripting language, the new language should follow the
     example of SOL and be provided as a library with a C API.

   Lua 1.0 was designed in such a way that its object constructors, being
   then slightly different from the current light and flexible style,
   incorporated the data-description syntax of SOL (hence the name Lua: Sol
   meaning "Sun" in Portuguese, and Lua meaning "Moon"). Lua syntax for
   control structures was mostly borrowed from Modula (if, while,
   repeat/until), but also had taken influence from CLU (multiple assignments
   and multiple returns from function calls, as a simpler alternative to
   reference parameters or explicit pointers), C++ ("neat idea of allowing a
   local variable to be declared only where we need it"^[6]), SNOBOL and AWK
   (associative arrays). In an article published in Dr. Dobb's Journal, Lua's
   creators also state that LISP and Scheme with their single, ubiquitous
   data-structure mechanism (the list) were a major influence on their
   decision to develop the table as the primary data structure of Lua.^[8]

   Lua semantics have been increasingly influenced by Scheme over time,^[6]
   especially with the introduction of anonymous functions and full lexical
   scoping. Several features were added in new Lua versions.

   Versions of Lua prior to version 5.0 were released under a license similar
   to the BSD license. From version 5.0 onwards, Lua has been licensed under
   the MIT License. Both are permissive free software licences and are almost
   identical.

FeaturesEdit

   Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Lua Programming 

   Lua is commonly described as a "multi-paradigm" language, providing a
   small set of general features that can be extended to fit different
   problem types. Lua does not contain explicit support for inheritance, but
   allows it to be implemented with metatables. Similarly, Lua allows
   programmers to implement namespaces, classes, and other related features
   using its single table implementation; first-class functions allow the
   employment of many techniques from functional programming; and full
   lexical scoping allows fine-grained information hiding to enforce the
   principle of least privilege.

   In general, Lua strives to provide simple, flexible meta-features that can
   be extended as needed, rather than supply a feature-set specific to one
   programming paradigm. As a result, the base language is light—the full
   reference interpreter is only about 247 kB compiled^[4]—and easily
   adaptable to a broad range of applications.

   A dynamically typed language intended for use as an extension language or
   scripting language, Lua is compact enough to fit on a variety of host
   platforms. It supports only a small number of atomic data structures such
   as boolean values, numbers (double-precision floating point and 64-bit
   integers by default), and strings. Typical data structures such as arrays,
   sets, lists, and records can be represented using Lua's single native data
   structure, the table, which is essentially a heterogeneous associative
   array.

   Lua implements a small set of advanced features such as first-class
   functions, garbage collection, closures, proper tail calls, coercion
   (automatic conversion between string and number values at run time),
   coroutines (cooperative multitasking) and dynamic module loading.

  SyntaxEdit

   The classic "Hello, World!" program can be written as follows:^[9]

 print("Hello, World!")

   or as:

 print 'Hello, World!'

   A comment in Lua starts with a double-hyphen and runs to the end of the
   line, similar to Ada, Eiffel, Haskell, SQL and VHDL. Multi-line strings
   and comments are adorned with double square brackets.

   The factorial function is implemented as a function in this example:

 function factorial(n)
   local x = 1
   for i = 2, n do
     x = x * i
   end
   return x
 end

  Control flowEdit

   Lua has one type of conditional test: if then end with optional else and
   elseif then execution control constructs.

   The generic if then end statement requires all three keywords:

 if condition then
         --statement body
 end

   The else keyword may be added with an accompanying statement block to
   control execution when the if condition evaluates to false:

 if condition then
         --statement body
 else
         --statement body
 end

   Execution may also be controlled according to multiple conditions using
   the elseif then keywords:

 if condition then
         --statement body
 elseif condition then
         --statement body
 else -- optional
         --optional default statement body
 end

   Lua has four types of conditional loops: the while loop, the repeat loop
   (similar to a do while loop), the numeric for loop, and the generic for
   loop.

 --condition = true

 while condition do
   --statements
 end

 repeat
   --statements
 until condition

 for i = first, last, delta do  --delta may be negative, allowing the for loop to count down or up
   --statements
   --example: print(i)
 end

   The generic for loop:

 for key, value in pairs(_G) do
   print(key, value)
 end

   would iterate over the table _G using the standard iterator function
   pairs, until it returns nil.

   Loops can also be nested (put inside of another loop).

 local grid = {
   { 11, 12, 13 },
   { 21, 22, 23 },
   { 31, 32, 33 }
 }

 for y, row in ipairs(grid) do
   for x, value in ipairs(row) do
     print(x, y, value)
   end
 end

  FunctionsEdit

   Lua's treatment of functions as first-class values is shown in the
   following example, where the print function's behavior is modified:

 do
   local oldprint = print
   -- Store current print function as oldprint
   function print(s)
     --[[ Redefine print function. The usual print function can still be used
       through oldprint. The new one has only one argument.]]
     oldprint(s == "foo" and "bar" or s)
   end
 end

   Any future calls to print will now be routed through the new function, and
   because of Lua's lexical scoping, the old print function will only be
   accessible by the new, modified print.

   Lua also supports closures, as demonstrated below:

 function addto(x)
   -- Return a new function that adds x to the argument
   return function(y)
     --[=[ When we refer to the variable x, which is outside the current
       scope and whose lifetime would be shorter than that of this anonymous
       function, Lua creates a closure.]=]
     return x + y
   end
 end
 fourplus = addto(4)
 print(fourplus(3))  -- Prints 7

 --This can also be achieved by calling the function in the following way:
 print(addto(4)(3))
 --[[ This is because we are calling the returned function from 'addto(4)' with the argument '3' directly.
   This also helps to reduce data cost and up performance if being called iteratively.
 ]]

   A new closure for the variable x is created every time addto is called, so
   that each new anonymous function returned will always access its own x
   parameter. The closure is managed by Lua's garbage collector, just like
   any other object.

  TablesEdit

   Tables are the most important data structures (and, by design, the only
   built-in composite data type) in Lua and are the foundation of all
   user-created types. They are associative arrays with addition of automatic
   numeric key and special syntax.

   A table is a collection of key and data pairs, where the data is
   referenced by key; in other words, it is a hashed heterogeneous
   associative array.

   Tables are created using the {} constructor syntax.

 a_table = {} -- Creates a new, empty table

   Tables are always passed by reference (see Call by sharing).

   A key (index) can be any value except nil and NaN, including functions.

 a_table = {x = 10}  -- Creates a new table, with one entry mapping "x" to the number 10.
 print(a_table["x"]) -- Prints the value associated with the string key, in this case 10.
 b_table = a_table
 b_table["x"] = 20   -- The value in the table has been changed to 20.
 print(b_table["x"]) -- Prints 20.
 print(a_table["x"]) -- Also prints 20, because a_table and b_table both refer to the same table.

   A table is often used as structure (or record) by using strings as keys.
   Because such use is very common, Lua features a special syntax for
   accessing such fields.^[10]

 point = { x = 10, y = 20 }   -- Create new table
 print(point["x"])            -- Prints 10
 print(point.x)               -- Has exactly the same meaning as line above. The easier-to-read dot notation is just syntactic sugar.

   By using a table to store related functions, it can act as a namespace.

 Point = {}

 Point.new = function(x, y)
   return {x = x, y = y}  --  return {["x"] = x, ["y"] = y}
 end

 Point.set_x = function(point, x)
   point.x = x  --  point["x"] = x;
 end

   Tables are automatically assigned a numerical key, enabling them to be
   used as an array data type. The first automatic index is 1 rather than 0
   as it is for many other programming languages (though an explicit index of
   0 is allowed).

   A numeric key 1 is distinct from a string key "1".

 array = { "a", "b", "c", "d" }   -- Indices are assigned automatically.
 print(array[2])                  -- Prints "b". Automatic indexing in Lua starts at 1.
 print(#array)                    -- Prints 4.  # is the length operator for tables and strings.
 array[0] = "z"                   -- Zero is a legal index.
 print(#array)                    -- Still prints 4, as Lua arrays are 1-based.

   The length of a table t is defined to be any integer index n such that
   t[n] is not nil and t[n+1] is nil; moreover, if t[1] is nil, n can be
   zero. For a regular array, with non-nil values from 1 to a given n, its
   length is exactly that n, the index of its last value. If the array has
   "holes" (that is, nil values between other non-nil values), then #t can be
   any of the indices that directly precedes a nil value (that is, it may
   consider any such nil value as the end of the array).^[11]

 ExampleTable =
 {
   {1, 2, 3, 4},
   {5, 6, 7, 8}
 }
 print(ExampleTable[1][3]) -- Prints "3"
 print(ExampleTable[2][4]) -- Prints "8"

   A table can be an array of objects.

 function Point(x, y)        -- "Point" object constructor
   return { x = x, y = y }   -- Creates and returns a new object (table)
 end
 array = { Point(10, 20), Point(30, 40), Point(50, 60) }   -- Creates array of points
                         -- array = { { x = 10, y = 20 }, { x = 30, y = 40 }, { x = 50, y = 60 } };
 print(array[2].y)                                         -- Prints 40

   Using a hash map to emulate an array is normally slower than using an
   actual array; however, Lua tables are optimized for use as arrays to help
   avoid this issue.^[12]

  MetatablesEdit

   Extensible semantics is a key feature of Lua, and the metatable concept
   allows powerful customization of tables. The following example
   demonstrates an "infinite" table. For any n, fibs[n] will give the n-th
   Fibonacci number using dynamic programming and memoization.

 fibs = { 1, 1 }                                -- Initial values for fibs[1] and fibs[2].
 setmetatable(fibs, {
   __index = function(values, n)                --[[__index is a function predefined by Lua,
                                                    it is called if key "n" does not exist.]]
     values[n] = values[n - 1] + values[n - 2]  -- Calculate and memorize fibs[n].
     return values[n]
   end
 })

  Object-oriented programmingEdit

   Although Lua does not have a built-in concept of classes, object-oriented
   programming can be emulated using functions and tables. An object is
   formed by putting methods and fields in a table. Inheritance (both single
   and multiple) can be implemented with metatables, delegating nonexistent
   methods and fields to a parent object.

   There is no such concept as "class" with these techniques; rather,
   prototypes are used, similar to Self or JavaScript. New objects are
   created either with a factory method (that constructs new objects from
   scratch) or by cloning an existing object.

   Creating a basic vector object:

 local Vector = {}
 local VectorMeta = { __index = Vector}

 function Vector.new(x, y, z)    -- The constructor
   return setmetatable({x = x, y = y, z = z}, VectorMeta)
 end

 function Vector.magnitude(self)     -- Another method
   return math.sqrt(self.x^2 + self.y^2 + self.z^2)
 end

 local vec = Vector.new(0, 1, 0) -- Create a vector
 print(vec.magnitude(vec))       -- Call a method (output: 1)
 print(vec.x)                    -- Access a member variable (output: 0)

   Here, setmetatable tells Lua to look for an element in the Vector table if
   it is not present in the vec table. vec.magnitude, which is equivalent to
   vec["magnitude"], first looks in the vec table for the magnitude element.
   The vec table does not have a magnitude element, but its metatable
   delegates to the Vector table for the magnitude element when it's not
   found in the vec table.

   Lua provides some syntactic sugar to facilitate object orientation. To
   declare member functions inside a prototype table, one can use function
   table:func(args), which is equivalent to function table.func(self, args).
   Calling class methods also makes use of the colon: object:func(args) is
   equivalent to object.func(object, args).

   That in mind, here is a corresponding class with : syntactic sugar:

 local Vector = {}
 Vector.__index = Vector

 function Vector:new(x, y, z)    -- The constructor
   -- Since the function definition uses a colon,
   -- its first argument is "self" which refers
   -- to "Vector"
   return setmetatable({x = x, y = y, z = z}, self)
 end

 function Vector:magnitude()     -- Another method
   -- Reference the implicit object using self
   return math.sqrt(self.x^2 + self.y^2 + self.z^2)
 end

 local vec = Vector:new(0, 1, 0) -- Create a vector
 print(vec:magnitude())          -- Call a method (output: 1)
 print(vec.x)                    -- Access a member variable (output: 0)

    InheritanceEdit

   Lua supports using metatables to give Lua class inheritance.^[13] In this
   example, we allow vectors to have their values multiplied by a constant in
   a derived class.

 local Vector = {}
 Vector.__index = Vector

 function Vector:new(x, y, z)    -- The constructor
   -- Here, self refers to whatever class's "new"
   -- method we call.  In a derived class, self will
   -- be the derived class; in the Vector class, self
   -- will be Vector
   return setmetatable({x = x, y = y, z = z}, self)
 end

 function Vector:magnitude()     -- Another method
   -- Reference the implicit object using self
   return math.sqrt(self.x^2 + self.y^2 + self.z^2)
 end

 -- Example of class inheritance
 local VectorMult = {}
 VectorMult.__index = VectorMult
 setmetatable(VectorMult, Vector) -- Make VectorMult a child of Vector

 function VectorMult:multiply(value)
   self.x = self.x * value
   self.y = self.y * value
   self.z = self.z * value
   return self
 end

 local vec = VectorMult:new(0, 1, 0) -- Create a vector
 print(vec:magnitude())          -- Call a method (output: 1)
 print(vec.y)                    -- Access a member variable (output: 1)
 vec:multiply(2)                 -- Multiply all components of vector by 2
 print(vec.y)                    -- Access member again (output: 2)

   Lua also supports multiple inheritance; __index can either be a function
   or a table.^[14] Operator overloading can also be done; Lua metatables can
   have elements such as __add, __sub, and so on.^[15]

ImplementationEdit

   Lua programs are not interpreted directly from the textual Lua file, but
   are compiled into bytecode, which is then run on the Lua virtual machine.
   The compilation process is typically invisible to the user and is
   performed during run-time, especially when a JIT compiler is used, but it
   can be done offline in order to increase loading performance or reduce the
   memory footprint of the host environment by leaving out the compiler. Lua
   bytecode can also be produced and executed from within Lua, using the dump
   function from the string library and the load/loadstring/loadfile
   functions. Lua version 5.3.4 is implemented in approximately 24,000 lines
   of C code.^[3]^[4]

   Like most CPUs, and unlike most virtual machines (which are stack-based),
   the Lua VM is register-based, and therefore more closely resembles an
   actual hardware design. The register architecture both avoids excessive
   copying of values and reduces the total number of instructions per
   function. The virtual machine of Lua 5 is one of the first register-based
   pure VMs to have a wide use.^[16] Parrot and Android's Dalvik are two
   other well-known register-based VMs. PCScheme's VM was also
   register-based.^[17]

   This example is the bytecode listing of the factorial function defined
   above (as shown by the luac 5.1 compiler):^[18]

 function <factorial.lua:1,7> (9 instructions, 36 bytes at 0x8063c60)
 1 param, 6 slots, 0 upvalues, 6 locals, 2 constants, 0 functions
         1       [2]     LOADK           1 -1    ; 1
         2       [3]     LOADK           2 -2    ; 2
         3       [3]     MOVE            3 0
         4       [3]     LOADK           4 -1    ; 1
         5       [3]     FORPREP         2 1     ; to 7
         6       [4]     MUL             1 1 5
         7       [3]     FORLOOP         2 -2    ; to 6
         8       [6]     RETURN          1 2
         9       [7]     RETURN          0 1

C APIEdit

   Lua is intended to be embedded into other applications, and provides a C
   API for this purpose. The API is divided into two parts: the Lua core and
   the Lua auxiliary library.^[19] The Lua API's design eliminates the need
   for manual reference management in C code, unlike Python's API. The API,
   like the language, is minimalistic. Advanced functionality is provided by
   the auxiliary library, which consists largely of preprocessor macros which
   assist with complex table operations.

   The Lua C API is stack based. Lua provides functions to push and pop most
   simple C data types (integers, floats, etc.) to and from the stack, as
   well as functions for manipulating tables through the stack. The Lua stack
   is somewhat different from a traditional stack; the stack can be indexed
   directly, for example. Negative indices indicate offsets from the top of
   the stack. For example, −1 is the top (most recently pushed value), while
   positive indices indicate offsets from the bottom (oldest value).
   Marshalling data between C and Lua functions is also done using the stack.
   To call a Lua function, arguments are pushed onto the stack, and then the
   lua_call is used to call the actual function. When writing a C function to
   be directly called from Lua, the arguments are read from the stack.

   Here is an example of calling a Lua function from C:

 #include <stdio.h>
 #include <lua.h> // Lua main library (lua_*)
 #include <lauxlib.h> // Lua auxiliary library (luaL_*)

 int main(void)
 {
     // create a Lua state
     lua_State *L = luaL_newstate();

     // load and execute a string
     if (luaL_dostring(L, "function foo (x,y) return x+y end")) {
         lua_close(L);
         return -1;
     }

     // push value of global "foo" (the function defined above)
     // to the stack, followed by integers 5 and 3
     lua_getglobal(L, "foo");
     lua_pushinteger(L, 5);
     lua_pushinteger(L, 3);
     lua_call(L, 2, 1); // call a function with two arguments and one return value
     printf("Result: %d\n", lua_tointeger(L, -1)); // print integer value of item at stack top
     lua_pop(L, 1); // return stack to original state
     lua_close(L); // close Lua state
     return 0;
 }

   Running this example gives:

 $ cc -o example example.c -llua
 $ ./example
 Result: 8

   The C API also provides some special tables, located at various
   "pseudo-indices" in the Lua stack. At LUA_GLOBALSINDEX prior to Lua
   5.2^[20] is the globals table, _G from within Lua, which is the main
   namespace. There is also a registry located at LUA_REGISTRYINDEX where C
   programs can store Lua values for later retrieval.

   It is possible to write extension modules using the Lua API. Extension
   modules are shared objects which can be used to extend the functionality
   of the interpreter by providing native facilities to Lua scripts. From the
   Lua side, such a module appears as a namespace table holding its functions
   and variables. Lua scripts may load extension modules using require,^[19]
   just like modules written in Lua itself. A growing collection of modules
   known as rocks are available through a package management system called
   LuaRocks,^[21] in the spirit of CPAN, RubyGems and Python eggs. Prewritten
   Lua bindings exist for most popular programming languages, including other
   scripting languages.^[22] For C++, there are a number of template-based
   approaches and some automatic binding generators.

ApplicationsEdit

   Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
   Main article: List of applications using Lua

   In video game development, Lua is widely used as a scripting language by
   programmers, mainly due to its perceived easiness to embed, fast
   execution, and short learning curve.^[23] Notable games which use Lua
   include Roblox,^[24] Garry's Mod, Payday 2, Phantasy Star Online 2, Dota
   2, Angry Birds Space,^[25] Crysis,^[26] and many others. Some games that
   do not natively support Lua programming or scripting, have this
   functionality added by mods, such as ComputerCraft does for Minecraft. In
   addition, Lua is also used in non-video game software, such as Adobe
   Lightroom, Moho, iClone, Aerospike and certain system software in FreeBSD
   and NetBSD, and is used as a template scripting language on MediaWiki
   using the Scribunto extension.^[27]

   In 2003, a poll conducted by GameDev.net showed Lua was the most popular
   scripting language for game programming.^[28] On 12 January 2012, Lua was
   announced as a winner of the Front Line Award 2011 from the magazine Game
   Developer in the category Programming Tools.^[29]

   A large number of non-game applications also use Lua for extensibility,
   such as LuaTeX, an implementation of the TeX type-setting language, Redis,
   a key-value database, Neovim, a text editor, and Nginx, a web server.

   Through the Scribunto extension, Lua is available as a server-side
   scripting language in the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia and
   other wikis.^[30] Among its uses are allowing the integration of data from
   Wikidata into articles,^[31] and powering the automated taxobox system.

Derived languagesEdit

  Languages that compile to LuaEdit

     * MoonScript is a dynamic, whitespace-sensitive scripting language
       inspired by CoffeeScript, which is compiled into Lua. This means that
       instead of using do and end (or { and }) to delimit sections of code
       it uses line breaks and indentation style.^[32]^[33]^[34] A notable
       usage of MoonScript is a video game distribution website Itch.io.
     * Haxe supports compilation to a Lua target, supporting Lua 5.1-5.3 as
       well as LuaJIT 2.0 and 2.1.
     * Fennel, a Lisp dialect that targets Lua.^[34]
     * Urn, a Lisp dialect that is built on Lua.^[35]
     * Amulet, an ML-like functional language, whose compiler outputs Lua
       files.^[36]

  DialectsEdit

     * LuaJIT
     * Luau from Roblox, Lua 5.1 language with gradual typing and ergonomic
       additions.^[37]
     * Ravi, JIT-enabled Lua 5.3 language with optional static typing. JIT is
       guided by type information.^[38]
     * Shine, a fork of LuaJIT with many extensions, including a module
       system and a macro system.^[39]

   In addition, the Lua users community provides some power patches on top of
   the reference C implementation.^[40]

See alsoEdit

     * Comparison of programming languages

ReferencesEdit

    1. ^ "Lua 5.4.4 now available". 26 January 2022. Retrieved 28 January
       2022.
    2. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Ring Team (5 December 2017). "The Ring programming language and other
       languages". ring-lang.net.
    3. ^ ^a ^b
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Ierusalimschy, Roberto; de Figueiredo, Luiz Henrique; Filho, Waldemar
       Celes (June 1996). "Lua—An Extensible Extension Language". Software:
       Practice and Experience. 26 (6): 635–652.
       doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-024X(199606)26:6<635::AID-SPE26>3.0.CO;2-P.
       Retrieved 24 October 2015.
    4. ^ ^a ^b ^c
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "About Lua". Lua.org. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
    5. ^
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       Yuri Takhteyev (21 April 2013). "From Brazil to Wikipedia". Foreign
       Affairs. Retrieved 25 April 2013.
    6. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Ierusalimschy, R.; Figueiredo, L. H.; Celes, W. (2007). "The evolution
       of Lua" (PDF). Proc. of ACM HOPL III. pp. 2–1–2–26.
       doi:10.1145/1238844.1238846. ISBN 978-1-59593-766-7.
       S2CID 475143.^[dead link]
    7. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "The evolution of an extension language: a history of Lua". 2001.
       Retrieved 18 December 2008.
    8. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Figueiredo, L. H.; Ierusalimschy, R.; Celes, W. (December 1996). "Lua:
       an Extensible Embedded Language. A few metamechanisms replace a host
       of features". Dr. Dobb's Journal. Vol. 21, no. 12. pp. 26–33.
    9. ^
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       "Programming in Lua : 1".
   10. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Lua 5.1 Reference Manual". 2014. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
   11. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Lua 5.1 Reference Manual". 2012. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
   12. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Lua 5.1 Source Code". 2006. Retrieved 24 March 2011.
   13. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Roberto Ierusalimschy. Programming in Lua, 4th Edition. p. 165.
   14. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Programming in Lua : 16.3". www.lua.org. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
   15. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "lua-users wiki: Metamethods Tutorial". lua-users.org. Retrieved 16
       September 2021.
   16. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Ierusalimschy, R.; Figueiredo, L. H.; Celes, W. (2005). "The
       implementation of Lua 5.0". J. Of Universal Comp. Sci. 11 (7):
       1159–1176.
   17. ^
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       Texas Instruments (1990). PC Scheme: Users Guide and Language
       Reference Manual, Trade Edition. ISBN 0-262-70040-9.
   18. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Kein-Hong Man (2006). "A No-Frills Introduction to Lua 5.1 VM
       Instructions" (PDF).
   19. ^ ^a ^b
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Lua 5.2 Reference Manual". Lua.org. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
   20. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Changes in the API". Lua 5.2 Reference Manual. Lua.org. Retrieved 9
       May 2014.
   21. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "LuaRocks". LuaRocks wiki. Retrieved 24 May 2009.
   22. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Binding Code To Lua". Lua-users wiki. Retrieved 24 May 2009.
   23. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Why is Lua considered a game language?". Archived from the original
       on 20 August 2013. Retrieved 22 April 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint:
       bot: original URL status unknown (link)
   24. ^
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       "Why Luau?". Luau. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
   25. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "TIL Angry Birds was coded in Lua - post - Imgur". Retrieved 23 March
       2022.
   26. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Introduction to Crysis server-side modding". Retrieved 23 March 2022.
   27. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Lua Functions". wow.gamepedia.com. Retrieved 1 March 2021.
   28. ^
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       "Poll Results". Archived from the original on 7 December 2003.
       Retrieved 22 April 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL
       status unknown (link)
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       "Front Line Award Winners Announced". Archived from the original on 15
       June 2013. Retrieved 22 April 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot:
       original URL status unknown (link)
   30. ^
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       "Extension:Scribunto - MediaWiki". MediaWiki.org. Retrieved 21
       February 2019.
   31. ^
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       "Wikidata:Infobox Tutorial - Wikidata". www.wikidata.org. Retrieved 21
       December 2018.
   32. ^
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       "Language Guide - MoonScript 0.5.0". moonscript.org. Retrieved 25
       September 2020.
   33. ^
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       leaf (23 September 2020), leafo/moonscript, retrieved 25 September
       2020
   34. ^ ^a ^b
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Andre Alves Garzia. "Languages that compile to Lua". AndreGarzia.com.
       Retrieved 25 September 2020.
   35. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Urn: A Lisp implementation for Lua | Urn". urn-lang.com. Retrieved 12
       January 2021.
   36. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Amulet ML". amulet.works. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
   37. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Luau". Roblox.GitHub.io.
   38. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Ravi Programming Language". GitHub.
   39. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Hundt, Richard (22 April 2021). "richardhundt/shine". GitHub.
   40. ^
       Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       "Lua Power Patches". lua-users.org.

Further readingEdit

     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Ierusalimschy, R. (2013). Programming in Lua (3rd ed.). Lua.org.
       ISBN 978-85-903798-5-0. (The 1st ed. is available online.)
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Gutschmidt, T. (2003). Game Programming with Python, Lua, and Ruby.
       Course Technology PTR. ISBN 978-1-59200-077-7.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Schuytema, P.; Manyen, M. (2005). Game Development with Lua. Charles
       River Media. ISBN 978-1-58450-404-7.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Jung, K.; Brown, A. (2007). Beginning Lua Programming. Wrox Press.
       ISBN 978-0-470-06917-2. Archived from the original on 8 July 2018.
       Retrieved 7 July 2018.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Figueiredo, L. H.; Celes, W.; Ierusalimschy, R., eds. (2008). Lua
       Programming Gems. Lua.org. ISBN 978-85-903798-4-3.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Takhteyev, Yuri (2012). Coding Places: Software Practice in a South
       American City. The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01807-4. Archived from
       the original on 2 November 2012. Chapters 6 and 7 are dedicated to
       Lua, while others look at software in Brazil more broadly.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Varma, Jayant (2012). Learn Lua for iOS Game Development. Apress.
       ISBN 978-1-4302-4662-6.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Matheson, Ash (29 April 2003). "An Introduction to Lua". GameDev.net.
       Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 3 January
       2013.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Fieldhouse, Keith (16 February 2006). "Introducing Lua". ONLamp.com.
       O'Reilly Media. Archived from the original on 12 March 2006. Retrieved
       28 February 2006.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Streicher, Martin (28 April 2006). "Embeddable scripting with Lua".
       developerWorks. IBM. Archived from the original on 2 July 2009.
       Retrieved 7 July 2018.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Quigley, Joseph (1 June 2007). "A Look at Lua". Linux Journal.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Hamilton, Naomi (11 September 2008). "The A-Z of Programming
       Languages: Lua". Computerworld. IDG. Archived from the original on 8
       July 2018. Retrieved 7 July 2018. Interview with Roberto
       Ierusalimschy.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Ierusalimschy, Roberto; de Figueiredo, Luiz Henrique; Celes, Waldemar
       (12 May 2011). "Passing a Language through the Eye of a Needle". ACM
       Queue. 9 (5): 20–29. doi:10.1145/1978862.1983083. S2CID 19484689. How
       the embeddability of Lua impacted its design.
     * Link: mw-deduplicated-inline-style
       Ierusalimschy, Roberto; de Figueiredo, Luiz Henrique; Celes, Waldemar
       (November 2018). "A Look at the Design of Lua". Communications of the
       ACM. 61 (11): 114–123. doi:10.1145/3186277. S2CID 53114923.^[permanent
       dead link]
     * Lua papers and theses

External linksEdit

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