The native Lua Project

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native Lua - Lua on the platform you use with the compiler you choose

Lua is multi-paradigm programming language. Lua is cross-platform as it is written in ANSI C. Lua is licensed under MIT license. For more information on Lua see lua.org.

native Lua delivers a framework to build and test Lua on any platform with any compiler.

Overview

By default Lua requires gcc and make to be installed to build the Lua binaries, therefore building for e.g., Linux or POSIX systems where gcc and make are natively available is easy. Building Lua on Windows with MinGWs' gcc and some sort of make is also straight forward.

But this does not allow a good platform and compiler independent way of building and testing Lua. Especially testing is not that simple as it should be. Therefore this project implements a platform and compiler independent way of building and testing Lua.

How-To

Building Lua with the native Lua project requires Python 3.6 or greater and some C compiler. Exemplary Windows build:

1. python waf configure
2. python waf build
3. python waf install

Supported Platforms And Compilers

The current release supports the following platform/compiler combinations:

Platform	Official Lua Releases	native Lua Releases
aix	gcc	xlc*, gcc*, clang*
bsd	gcc	see OpenBSD and NetBSD
OpenBSD	see bsd	gcc, clang
NetBSD	see bsd	gcc*, clang*
c89	gcc	all compilers*
FreeBSD	gcc	gcc, clang
generic	gcc	gcc (not win32), msvc (win32)
linux	gcc	gcc, clang, icc*
macOS	gcc	gcc, clang
MinGW	gcc	see win32
posix	gcc	TODO
solaris	gcc	gcc*, clang*
win32	see MinGw	msvc, gcc, clang
cygwin	no	gcc, clang

* means not or not fully tested.

Repository Structure And Code Organization

The repository is structured into the parts described below.

Root Directory

The root directory contains the

• general project documentation (README.md, CHANGELOG.md)
• build script and build toolchain (wscript, waf, waf.bat),
• required Python packages (requirements.txt, environment.yml),
• CI scripts (.appveyor.yml, .cirrus.yml, azure-pipelines.yml),
• editor configurations (.vscode, .editorconfig),
• coding and general guidelines (pyproject.toml),
• licensing information (LICENSE),
• and information on the native Lua project and the lua version (VERSION).

demos Directory

Some scripts demonstrating what can be done with Lua. These demos should not use libraries that do not come with the Lua interpreter.

docs Directory

This directory contains the man page files for unix-like systems.

src Directory

This directory contains the source files downloaded from lua.org/ftp. Trailing whitespace and additional newlines at the end of the files are removed. Furthermore the native Lua header is included (see _native_lua_config.h).

Changes to original Lua sources are indicated by the following comment:

/* native Lua */

The lua interpreter (lua.c) as well as the lua compiler (luac.c) have been changed, to indicate, that they were build based on the native Lua project:

$ build/gcc/lua -v
Lua 5.4.0  Copyright (C) 1994-2017 Lua.org, PUC-Rio [based on native Lua (0.6.0-devel), https://github.com/swaldhoer/native-lua]

tests Directory

This directory contains the source files downloaded from lua.org/tests. Trailing whitespace and additional newlines at the end of the files are removed.

Note: The encoding of test files must not be changed.

Some tests require changes to the test files in order to work on platforms.

Changes to original Lua test sources are indicated by the following comment:

-- native Lua

Test files for the build toolchain have been added in tests/build.

Documentation

The native Lua project is document in this README.md and in the build script (wscript).

License

native Lua is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.