Beginning Lua Programming

by Jung, Kurt; Brown, Aaron

ISBN13: 9780470069172

ISBN10: 0470069171

Format: Paperback

Pub. Date: 2007-02-12

Publisher(s): Wrox

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Summary

Lua offers a wide range of features that you can use to support and enhance your applications. With this book as your guide, you'll gain a thorough understanding of all aspects of programming with this powerful language. The authors present the fundamentals of programming, explain standard Lua functions, and explain how to take advantage of free Lua community resources. Complete code samples are integrated throughout the chapters to clearly demonstrate how to apply the information so that you can quickly write your own programs.

Author Biography

Between his first programs submitted to a Burroughs 5500 on Hollerith punch cards and his latest programs tapped into a Palm Pilot, Kurt Jung has been the principal programmer on various projects ranging from airline yield management to state machine–driven workflow.

Aaron Brown began programming in elementary school on a Commodore 64. He plays various musical instruments and speaks Esperanto.

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. xxiii
Getting Situated	p. 1
Choosing How to Install Lua	p. 1
Building Lua Yourself	p. 2
Selecting Prebuilt Lua	p. 3
Finding Your System's Shell	p. 3
Windows Shells	p. 3
Shells on Unix and Unix-Like systems	p. 3
Shell Features	p. 4
The Environment	p. 4
Environment Variables on Unix-Like Systems	p. 4
Environment Variables on Windows	p. 5
Dealing with Tarballs and Zip Files	p. 6
Compiling Lua	p. 7
The Lua Source Tarball	p. 7
Compiling Lua on Linux and Other Unix-Like Systems	p. 8
Compiling Lua on Windows	p. 12
Building Lua with Microsoft Visual C++	p. 13
Building Lua with the Tiny C Compiler	p. 14
Building Lua with MinGW	p. 16
Binary Packages	p. 13
Selecting a Prebuilt Binary Package	p. 18
Installing a Prebuilt Binary Package on a Unix-Type System	p. 19
Installing a Prebuilt Binary Package on Windows	p. 20
Additional Tools	p. 21
Programmer's Editor	p. 21
Revision Control System	p. 22
Summary	p. 22
First Steps	p. 23
Numbers and Arithmetic Operations: Basic Interpreter Usage	p. 23
Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, and Exponentiation	p. 24
Interacting with the Interpreter	p. 24
Other Notations for Numbers	p. 25
Interpreter Know-How	p. 26
Quitting the Interpreter	p. 26
Interpreter Shortcuts	p. 26
Numerical Gotchas	p. 27
Division by Zero and Overflow	p. 27
Floating-Point Rounding	p. 28
Variables and Assignment	p. 28
Assignment Basics	p. 29
Multiple Assignment	p. 31
Variables on the Right Side of Assignments	p. 32
Strings	p. 32
Quoting Strings	p. 32
Quoting Strings with Double Quotes	p. 32
Quoting Strings with Single Quotes	p. 33
Quoting Strings with Square Brackets	p. 33
Backslash Escaping	p. 35
Relational Operators and Boolean Values	p. 37
Comparing Numbers	p. 37
Comparing Strings	p. 38
The nil Value	p. 40
Boolean Operators	p. 41
The and Operator	p. 42
The or Operator	p. 43
The not Unary Operator	p. 44
The Concatenation, Length, and Modulo Operators	p. 45
The String Concatenation Operator	p. 45
The Length Operator	p. 46
The Modulo Operator	p. 47
Automatic Conversion of Operands	p. 48
Precedence and Associativity	p. 49
Variables and Values	p. 51
Comments	p. 52
Expressions and Statements	p. 53
Compound Statements	p. 54
The if Statement	p. 55
The while Loop	p. 58
The for Loop	p. 60
The repeat Loop	p. 62
The break and do Statements	p. 63
Summary	p. 66
Exercises	p. 66
Extending Lua with Functions	p. 69
Return Values	p. 72
Using a Function that Returns a Value	p. 72
Defining a Function that Returns a Value	p. 73
Using return to Alter Control Flow	p. 74
Returning Nothing	p. 76
Returning Multiple Values	p. 77
Adjusting Value Lists	p. 78
Using Multiple-Valued Functions in Value Lists	p. 78
Using Valueless Functions in Value Lists	p. 79
Chunks as Functions	p. 81
Variable Scope	p. 84
Actual and Formal Arguments	p. 84
Local Variables	p. 85
Understanding Side Effects	p. 91
Ordering Side Effects	p. 91
Short-Circuit Evaluation	p. 93
Functions Calling Functions	p. 95
The Call Stack	p. 95
Recursion	p. 97
Stack Overflow	p. 98
Tail Calls	p. 99
Functions as Values	p. 102
Replacing Built-In Functions	p. 102
Comparing and Printing Functions	p. 103
Function Definitions as Assignments	p. 103
Local Functions	p. 105
Whitespace, Semicolons, and Function Calls	p. 106
Upvalues and Closures	p. 108
Defining Functions that Create Functions	p. 108
Defining Functions with Private State	p. 110
Figuring Out Tricky Scope Situations	p. 111
Summary	p. 113
Exercises	p. 114
Working with Tables	p. 117
Tables Introduced	p. 117
A Shorter Way to Write Some Keys	p. 119
Altering a Table's Contents	p. 120
Tables as Arrays	p. 121
Array Length	p. 123
Looping through Tables	p. 124
Tables of Functions	p. 128
The Table Library	p. 128
table.sort	p. 128
table.concat	p. 131
table.remove	p. 132
table.maxn	p. 132
Object-Oriented Programming with Tables	p. 133
Functions with Variable Numbers of Arguments	p. 136
Defining Vararg Functions	p. 136
Scripts as Vararg Functions	p. 140
Keyword Arguments	p. 143
Different but the Same	p. 144
Table Equality	p. 144
Avoiding Bugs by Understanding Mutability	p. 145
Variables and Mutable Values	p. 145
Tables and Functions	p. 147
Copying Tables	p. 148
Building Other Data Structures from Tables	p. 152
Custom-Made Loops	p. 158
Global Variable Environments	p. 163
Summary	p. 168
Exercises	p. 169
Using Strings	p. 171
Basic String Conversion Functions	p. 171
String Length	p. 173
Converting Between Characters and Character Codes	p. 173
Formatting Strings and Numbers with string.format	p. 174
Input/Output	p. 180
Writing to and Reading from a File	p. 181
Pattern-Matching	p. 185
Searching for a Specific String	p. 186
Matching Any of Several Characters	p. 186
Matches of Varying Lengths	p. 193
Captures	p. 198
Matching Balanced Delimiters	p. 202
More on string.find, string.match, and string.gsub	p. 202
Iterating Through All Matches	p. 204
Tricks for the Tricky	p. 207
Magic Characters Chart	p. 209
Summary	p. 210
Exercises	p. 210
Handling and Avoiding Errors	p. 213
Kinds of Errors	p. 213
Syntax Errors	p. 213
Runtime Errors	p. 217
Handling Errors	p. 218
Default Error Behavior	p. 218
Checking Assumptions	p. 219
Code Errors	p. 220
Data Errors	p. 220
The assert and error Functions	p. 220
Defining Your Own Error Condition	p. 221
Anticipating Error Conditions	p. 222
Working with Return Values	p. 222
Structuring Code	p. 224
Error-Containment Functions	p. 227
The pcall Function	p. 227
The xpcall Function	p. 229
User-Written Scripts	p. 230
Locating Errors	p. 230
Summary	p. 230
Exercises	p. 231
Using Modules	p. 233
Interfaces and Implementations	p. 233
The require Function	p. 234
Where to Put Modules	p. 235
Creating a Module Directory	p. 235
Setting Lua's Environment Variable	p. 236
Preserving a Module's Interface	p. 236
Module Bookkeeping	p. 240
Bytecode	p. 241
Namespaces	p. 242
Creating and Reusing Namespaces	p. 242
Avoiding Global Variables	p. 244
Using the strict Module	p. 244
Reporting All Global Assignments	p. 244
The module Fynction	p. 245
C Modules	p. 247
Summary	p. 247
Exercises	p. 247
Extending Lua's Behavior with Metamethods	p. 249
Using Concatenation and Arithmetical Operators on Tables	p. 249
Relational Metamethods	p. 257
Indexing and Call Metamethods	p. 258
Non-Tables with Metamethods	p. 265
Non-Syntactical Metamethods	p. 267
Metamethod Applicability	p. 268
Summary	p. 268
Exercises	p. 269
Handling Events Naturally with Coroutines	p. 271
Coroutines and Program Control	p. 271
Coroutines Are Not Functions	p. 272
How Coroutines Are Like Programs	p. 272
Coroutines Transfer Control	p. 273
Wrapping a Coroutine	p. 273
Coroutines Are Cooperative	p. 273
Outside Looking In	p. 275
Coroutines Have Status	p. 278
Rules of Conduct	p. 279
Work Shoulder-to-Shoulder	p. 279
Trust the Dispatcher	p. 280
Expect the Best, Prepare for the Worst	p. 280
Play on Your Side of the Fence	p. 280
Avoid the Deep End	p. 281
Managing Concurrent Tasks	p. 281
Retaining State	p. 282
Exercising a Coroutine's Memory	p. 282
Iterating with Coroutines	p. 286
Handling Events Simply	p. 287
The Event Loop	p. 288
Yielding to Another Coroutine	p. 296
Summary	p. 297
Exercises	p. 297
Looking Under the Hood	p. 299
Bytecode and luac	p. 299
Garbage Collection	p. 303
The Implementation of Tables and Strings	p. 307
The Debug Library	p. 308
Inspecting and Manipulating Running Code	p. 308
Hooks	p. 315
Other Functions in the Debug Library	p. 321
Summary	p. 321
Exercises	p. 322
Exploring Lua's Libraries	p. 325
Core Library	p. 325
Environment Functions	p. 325
Metatable Functions	p. 326
Chunk-Loading Functions	p. 328
Error-Containment Functions	p. 330
Module Functions	p. 331
The Garbage-Collection Function	p. 332
Type and Conversion Functions	p. 333
Basic Output	p. 333
Error-Condition Functions	p. 333
Table Traversal Functions	p. 334
Vararg-Related Functions	p. 335
Coroutine Library	p. 336
Package Library	p. 338
String Library	p. 340
Pattern-Based String Functions	p. 340
String-Conversion Functions	p. 342
Table Library	p. 344
Math Library	p. 345
Trigonometric Functions	p. 345
Inverse Trigonometric Functions	p. 348
Hyperbolic Functions	p. 351
Exponent Functions	p. 354
Logarithm Functions	p. 356
Adjustment Functions	p. 358
Floating Point Representation	p. 360
Angle Conversion Functions	p. 361
Pseudo-Random Number Functions	p. 362
Modulus Functions	p. 362
Minimum and Maximum Functions	p. 363
Constants	p. 363
Input/Output Library	p. 364
Operating System Library	p. 368
CPU Timing	p. 368
Time and Date Functions	p. 368
Filesystem Functions	p. 369
Other Operating System Functions	p. 370
Debugging Library	p. 370
Summary	p. 373
Using Community Libraries	p. 375
Library Overview	p. 375
Dynamically Linked Libraries	p. 376
Resolving External References	p. 376
Configuration Options	p. 376
Libraries Built from Source Code	p. 377
Building Libraries on Unix-Like Systems	p. 378
Building Libraries on Windows	p. 378
Limits to Portability	p. 379
How Lua Interacts with Libraries	p. 379
The Variable Registration Process	p. 379
Calling a C Function from Lua	p. 380
The pack Binary Structuring Library	p. 383
Building the pack Library on Unix-type Systems	p. 383
Building and Installing the pack Library on Windows	p. 384
Testing the pack Library	p. 384
Installing the pack Library	p. 385
Using the pack Library	p. 385
The cURL File Transfer Library	p. 389
Building libcurl	p. 389
Building libcurl on Unix-Like Systems	p. 390
Building libcurl on Windows	p. 391
Building luacurl	p. 392
Building luacurl on Unix-Like Systems	p. 392
Building luacurl on Windows	p. 393
Using luacurl	p. 393
The gd Graphics Library	p. 395
Building gd	p. 395
Building gd on Unix-Like Systems	p. 396
Installing gd on Windows	p. 396
Building lua-gd	p. 397
Building lua-gd on Unix-Like Systems	p. 397
Building lua-gd on Windows	p. 398
Using lua-gd	p. 399
The SQLite Database Library	p. 405
Building SQLite3	p. 405
Building SQLite3 on Unix-Like Systems	p. 405
Building SQLite3 on Windows	p. 406
Building lua-sqlite3	p. 407
Building lua-sqlite3 on Unix-Like Systems	p. 407
Building lua-sqlite3 on Windows	p. 408
Using lua-sqlite3	p. 409
Summary	p. 411
Exercises	p. 412
Interfacing Lua with Other Languages	p. 413
How C Programs Use Lua	p. 413
Embedding Lua	p. 414
Extending Lua	p. 414
Embedding or Extending: Which Is Best?	p. 414
Communicating Between Lua and C	p. 415
Calling Lua from C	p. 421
Obtaining a Lua Function	p. 421
Calling a Lua Function	p. 421
Protected Calls	p. 422
Working with Userdata	p. 423
Indexing Values in C	p. 436
Retrieving Indexed Values	p. 436
Setting Indexed Values	p. 437
Retaining Values in C	p. 438
The Registry	p. 438
C Function Environments	p. 439
Upvalues in C	p. 439
Referencing Values	p. 440
The Thread Environment	p. 441
Layering Your Extension Library	p. 441
Summary	p. 447
Exercises	p. 448
Managing Information with Databases	p. 449
Some Basic Relational Database Concepts	p. 449
SQL, LuaSQL, and MySQL	p. 458
Summary	p. 466
Exercises	p. 466
Programming for the Web	p. 467
A Web Server Primer	p. 467
Dynamic Web Content	p. 468
Embedded Web Server	p. 468
Extended Web Server	p. 469
Creating Content at Run Time with Lua	p. 469
Executing CGI Scripts	p. 469
CGI Scripts on Unix-Type Systems	p. 470
CGI Scripts on Windows	p. 470
Installing a Web Server	p. 471
Apache	p. 471
TinyWeb	p. 472
Testing Your Web Server with Static Content	p. 474
Serving Dynamic Web Content	p. 474
Problems with CGI Scripts	p. 475
Asynchronous Calls to the Server	p. 476
Producing a Calendar Dynamically	p. 478
Producing Charts Dynamically	p. 481
Interactive CGI Applications	p. 489
CGI Helper Routines	p. 489
Developing CGI Scripts	p. 498
Security Issues	p. 498
The Kepler Project	p. 498
CGI the Kepler Way	p. 499
Lua Pages	p. 500
Summary	p. 501
Exercises	p. 501
Connecting to a Larger World	p. 503
Installing LuaSocket	p. 503
Compiling LuaSocket	p. 504
Compiling on Linux and Other Unix-Like Systems	p. 504
Compiling on Windows	p. 504
Installing Windows Binaries	p. 505
Network Overview	p. 506
Routed Packets	p. 506
Addresses	p. 507
Domain Names	p. 507
Identifying Internet Resources	p. 508
Transport Protocols	p. 509
Sockets: Streams and Datagrams	p. 510
TCP Socket Sociology	p. 511
Using LuaSocket for Network Communication	p. 512
Handling Multiple Persistent Connections	p. 518
Using Lua Coroutines with the select Function	p. 518
Multiple Connections on the Server Side	p. 522
Setting Timeout Values for the Server Socket	p. 523
The Application Protocols	p. 524
Filtering the Flow of Data	p. 524
Accessing Web Pages	p. 527
Sending and Receiving E-mail Messages	p. 529
Networking with Lua and Streams	p. 536
On the Server Side: inetd and Friends	p. 536
On the Client Side: ssh and Friends	p. 538
Summary	p. 541
Exercises	p. 542
Programming Games with Lua	p. 543
Understanding Why and When to Use Lua	p. 543
Simple 2-D Action Game Using SDL	p. 544
Installing SDL and LuaCheia	p. 544
Using SDL	p. 546
Summary	p. 562
Exercise	p. 562
Carrying Lua with You	p. 565
Getting Started with Plua	p. 565
Obtaining Plua	p. 566
Examining the Distribution Contents	p. 566
Exploring Plua's Features	p. 567
Running the Plua Application	p. 567
Saving Plua Programs	p. 569
Reading the Online Documentation	p. 570
Using Palm OS Streams	p. 571
Compiling Applications	p. 572
Compiling Libraries	p. 573
Plua on the Mothership	p. 576
The Command-Line Compiler	p. 576
The Palm OS Emulator	p. 577
Obtaining the Emulator	p. 577
Installing on Windows	p. 578
Configuring POSE	p. 578
Running Plua in the Emulator	p. 578
Compiling a Program in the Emulator	p. 580
Exiting the Emulator	p. 580
The Palm OS Simulator	p. 581
Obtaining the Simulator	p. 581
Using the Simulator	p. 581
Programming with Plua	p. 581
Generating Graphics	p. 582
Programming the User Interface	p. 583
Accessing Databases	p. 590
Summary	p. 592
Exercises	p. 593
Fitting into the Lua Community	p. 595
The Lua Web Site	p. 596
The Lua Reference Manual	p. 596
Framing Questions	p. 597
The Lua Mailing List	p. 597
Viewing and Searching the Archives	p. 597
Downloading the Archives	p. 598
Using a Web Browser to Access the List	p. 599
Using a Newsreader to Access the List	p. 599
Subscribing to the List Server	p. 599
Posting Messages	p. 600
The Lua Chat Room	p. 601
Forums	p. 601
The Lua Wiki	p. 601
LuaForge	p. 602
Annual Workshops	p. 603
Summary	p. 603
Answers	p. 605
Index	p. 629
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