History
Lua was created in 1993 byif
, 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 Features
Lua is commonly described as a "Syntax
The classicControl flow
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:
else
keyword may be added with an accompanying statement block to control execution when the if
condition evaluates to false
:
elseif then
keywords:
while
loop, the repeat
loop (similar to a do while
loop), the numeric for
loop, and the generic for
loop.
for
loop:
_G
using the standard iterator function pairs
, until it returns nil
.
Loops can also be Functions
Lua's treatment of functions as first-class values is shown in the following example, where the print function's behavior is modified:print
will now be routed through the new function, and because of Lua's 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.
Tables
Tables are the most important data structures (and, by design, the only built-in
constructor syntax.
nil
and 1
is distinct from a string key "1"
.
t
is defined to be any integer index n
such that t /code> is not nil
and t +1/code> is nil
; moreover, if t /code> 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).
ExampleTable =
print(ExampleTable 3]) -- Prints "3"
print(ExampleTable 4]) -- Prints "8"
A table can be an array of objects.
function Point(x, y) -- "Point" object constructor
return -- Creates and returns a new object (table)
end
array = -- Creates array of points
-- array = ;
print(array 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.
Metatables
Extensible semantics is a key feature of Lua, and the metatable {{For, the object prototype mechanism in Lua, Lua (programming language)#Object-oriented programming
A metatable is the section of a database or other data holding structure that is designated to hold data that will act as source code or metadata. ...
concept allows powerful customization of tables. The following example demonstrates an "infinite" table. For any n
, fibs /code> will give the n
-th Fibonacci number
In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from ...
using dynamic programming
Dynamic programming is both a mathematical optimization method and a computer programming method. The method was developed by Richard Bellman in the 1950s and has found applications in numerous fields, from aerospace engineering to economics.
I ...
and memoization
In computing, memoization or memoisation is an optimization technique used primarily to speed up computer programs by storing the results of expensive function calls and returning the cached result when the same inputs occur again. Memoization ...
.
fibs = -- Initial values for fibs and fibs
setmetatable(fibs, )
Object-oriented programming
Although Lua does not have a built-in concept of classes, object-oriented programming
Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of pr ...
can be emulated using functions and tables. An object is formed by putting methods and fields in a table. Inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...
(both single and multiple) can be implemented with metatable {{For, the object prototype mechanism in Lua, Lua (programming language)#Object-oriented programming
A metatable is the section of a database or other data holding structure that is designated to hold data that will act as source code or metadata. ...
s, delegating nonexistent methods and fields to a parent object.
There is no such concept as "class" with these techniques; rather, prototypes
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and software programming. A prototype is generally used to ...
are used, similar to Self
The self is an individual as the object of that individual’s own reflective consciousness. Since the ''self'' is a reference by a subject to the same subject, this reference is necessarily subjective. The sense of having a self—or ''selfhood ...
or JavaScript
JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...
. New objects are created either with a factory method
In class-based programming, the factory method pattern is a creational pattern that uses factory methods to deal with the problem of creating objects without having to specify the exact class of the object that will be created. This is done by cr ...
(that constructs new objects from scratch) or by cloning an existing object.
Creating a basic vector
Vector most often refers to:
*Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction
*Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism
Vector may also refer to:
Mathematic ...
object:
local Vector =
local VectorMeta =
function Vector.new(x, y, z) -- The constructor
return setmetatable(, 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, tells Lua to look for an element in the table if it is not present in the table. , which is equivalent to , first looks in the table for the element. The table does not have a element, but its metatable delegates to the table for the element when it's not found in the table.
Lua provides some syntactic sugar
In computer science, syntactic sugar is syntax within a programming language that is designed to make things easier to read or to express. It makes the language "sweeter" for human use: things can be expressed more clearly, more concisely, or in an ...
to facilitate object orientation. To declare member functions inside a prototype table, one can use , which is equivalent to . Calling class methods also makes use of the colon: is equivalent to .
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(, 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)
Inheritance
Lua supports using metatables to give Lua class inheritance. 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(, 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
Multiple inheritance is a feature of some object-oriented computer programming languages in which an object or class can inherit features from more than one parent object or parent class. It is distinct from single inheritance, where an object or ...
; can either be a function or a table. Operator overloading
In computer programming, operator overloading, sometimes termed ''operator ad hoc polymorphism'', is a specific case of polymorphism, where different operators have different implementations depending on their arguments. Operator overloading is ...
can also be done; Lua metatables can have elements such as , , and so on.
Implementation
Lua programs are not interpreted directly from the textual Lua file, but are compiled
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that ...
into bytecode, which is then run on the Lua virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...
. The compilation process is typically invisible to the user and is performed during run-time, especially when a JIT compiler
In computing, just-in-time (JIT) compilation (also dynamic translation or run-time compilations) is a way of executing computer code that involves compilation during execution of a program (at run time) rather than before execution. This may cons ...
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.
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. Parrot
Parrots, also known as psittacines (), are birds of the roughly 398 species in 92 genera comprising the order Psittaciformes (), found mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies: the Psittacoid ...
and Android's Dalvik are two other well-known register-based VMs. PCScheme's VM was also register-based.
This example is the bytecode listing of the factorial function defined above (as shown by the luac
5.1 compiler):
function (9 instructions, 36 bytes at 0x8063c60)
1 param, 6 slots, 0 upvalues, 6 locals, 2 constants, 0 functions
1 LOADK 1 -1 ; 1
2 LOADK 2 -2 ; 2
3 MOVE 3 0
4 LOADK 4 -1 ; 1
5 FORPREP 2 1 ; to 7
6 MUL 1 1 5
7 FORLOOP 2 -2 ; to 6
8 RETURN 1 2
9 RETURN 0 1
C API
Lua is intended to be embedded into other applications, and provides a C API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
for this purpose. The API is divided into two parts: the Lua core and the Lua auxiliary library. The Lua API's design eliminates the need for manual reference management
Reference management software, citation management software, or bibliographic management software is software for scholars and authors to use for recording and utilising bibliographic citations (references) as well as managing project references ...
in C code, unlike Python
Python may refer to:
Snakes
* Pythonidae, a family of nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia
** ''Python'' (genus), a genus of Pythonidae found in Africa and Asia
* Python (mythology), a mythical serpent
Computing
* Python (pro ...
's API. The API, like the language, is minimalistic. Advanced functionality is provided by the auxiliary library, which consists largely of preprocessor
In computer science, a preprocessor (or precompiler) is a program that processes its input data to produce output that is used as input in another program. The output is said to be a preprocessed form of the input data, which is often used by so ...
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
#include // Lua main library (lua_*)
#include // Lua auxiliary library (luaL_*)
int main(void)
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 is the globals table, _G
from within Lua, which is the main namespace
In computing, a namespace is a set of signs (''names'') that are used to identify and refer to objects of various kinds. A namespace ensures that all of a given set of objects have unique names so that they can be easily identified.
Namespaces ...
. There is also a registry located at LUA_REGISTRYINDEX
where C programs can store Lua values for later retrieval.
Modules
Besides standard library (core) modules it is possible to write extensions 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. Lua scripts may load extension modules using require
, just like modules written in Lua itself, or with package.loadlib
. When a C library is loaded via require("foo")
Lua will look for the function luaopen_foo
and call it, which acts as any C function callable from Lua and generally returns a table filled with methods . A growing collection of modules known as ''rocks'' are available through a package management system
A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner.
A package manager deals w ...
called LuaRocks
LuaRocks is a package manager for the Lua programming language that provides a standard format for distributing Lua modules (in a self-contained format called a "rock"), a tool designed to easily manage the installation of rocks, and a server fo ...
, in the spirit of CPAN
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a repository of over 250,000 software modules and accompanying documentation for 39,000 distributions, written in the Perl programming language by over 12,000 contributors. ''CPAN'' can denote eith ...
, RubyGems
RubyGems is a package manager for the Ruby programming language that provides a standard format for distributing Ruby programs and libraries (in a self-contained format called a "gem"), a tool designed to easily manage the installation of gems ...
and Python eggs. Prewritten Lua bindings exist for most popular programming languages, including other scripting languages. For C++, there are a number of template-based approaches and some automatic binding generators.
Applications
In video game development
Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC a ...
, Lua is widely used as a scripting language
A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled.
A scripting ...
by programmers
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
, mainly due to its perceived easiness to embed, fast execution, and short learning curve
A learning curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between how Skill, proficient people are at a task and the amount of experience they have. Proficiency (measured on the vertical axis) usually increases with increased experience ...
. Notable games which use Lua include ''Roblox
''Roblox'' () is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 20 ...
'', ''Garry's Mod
''Garry's Mod'' is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of ''Garry's Mod'' has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to freely manipulate objects. Other game ...
'', '' World of Warcraft
''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...
'', ''Payday 2
''Payday 2'' is a cooperative first-person shooter video game developed by Overkill Software and published by 505 Games. The game is a sequel to 2011's '' Payday: The Heist''. It was released in August 2013 for Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox ...
'', ''Phantasy Star Online 2
is a free-to-play online action role-playing game in the ''Phantasy Star'' series, developed and published by Sega. It was created as a successor to '' Phantasy Star Online'' and ''Phantasy Star Universe'', ''Phantasy Star Online 2'' features ...
'', ''Dota 2
''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota 2' ...
'', '' Angry Birds Space'', ''Crysis
''Crysis'' is a first-person shooter video game series created by Crytek. The series revolves around a group of military protagonists with " nanosuits", technologically advanced suits of armor that give them enhanced physical strength, speed, ...
'', 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
''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being ...
''. In addition, Lua is also used in non-video game software, such as Adobe Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom (officially Adobe Photoshop Lightroom) is a piece of image organization and image manipulation software developed by Adobe Inc. as part of the Creative Cloud subscription family. It is supported on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, ...
, Moho, iClone
iClone is a real-time 3D animation and rendering software program. Real-time playback is enabled by using a 3D videogame engine for instant on-screen rendering.
Other functionality includes: full facial and skeletal animation of human and an ...
, Aerospike and certain system software in FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...
and NetBSD
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...
, and is used as a template scripting language on MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWiki ...
using the Scribunto extension.
In 2003, a poll conducted by GameDev.net showed Lua was the most popular scripting language for game programming. 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.
A large number of non-game applications also use Lua for extensibility, such as LuaTeX
LuaTeX is a TeX-based computer typesetting system which started as a version of pdfTeX with a Lua scripting engine embedded. After some experiments it was adopted by the TeX Live distribution as a successor to pdfTeX (itself an extension of ε- ...
, an implementation of the TeX
Tex may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname
* Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr.
Entertainment
* ''Tex'', the Italian ...
type-setting language, Redis
Redis (; Remote Dictionary Server) is an in-memory data structure store, used as a distributed, in-memory key–value database, cache and message broker, with optional durability. Redis supports different kinds of abstract data structures, su ...
, a key-value database, Neovim
Vim (;
"Vim is pronounced as one word, like Jim, not vi-ai-em. It's written with a capital, since it's a name, again like Jim." ...
, a text editor, Nginx
Nginx (pronounced "engine x" ) is a web server that can also be used as a reverse proxy, load balancer, mail proxy and HTTP cache. The software was created by Igor Sysoev and publicly released in 2004. Nginx is free and open-source software ...
, a web server
A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that accepts requests via HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, commonly a web browser or web crawler, initiate ...
, and Wireshark
Wireshark is a free and open-source packet analyzer. It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education. Originally named Ethereal, the project was renamed Wireshark in May 2006 d ...
, a network packet analyzer.
Through the Scribunto extension, Lua is available as a server-side scripting language in the MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWiki ...
software that powers Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
and other wikis. Among its uses are allowing the integration of data from Wikidata
Wikidata is a collaboratively edited multilingual knowledge graph hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a common source of open data that Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, and anyone else, can use under the CC0 public domain license. ...
into articles, and powering the .
Derived languages
Languages that compile to Lua
* MoonScript is a dynamic
Dynamics (from Greek δυναμικός ''dynamikos'' "powerful", from δύναμις ''dynamis'' "power") or dynamic may refer to:
Physics and engineering
* Dynamics (mechanics)
** Aerodynamics, the study of the motion of air
** Analytical dynam ...
, whitespace-sensitive scripting language
A scripting language or script language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. Scripting languages are usually interpreted at runtime rather than compiled.
A scripting ...
inspired by CoffeeScript
CoffeeScript is a programming language that compiles to JavaScript. It adds syntactic sugar inspired by Ruby, Python, and Haskell in an effort to enhance JavaScript's brevity and readability. Specific additional features include list comprehensio ...
, which is compiled into Lua. This means that instead of using do
and end
(or
) to delimit sections of code it uses line breaks and indentation style
In computer programming, an indentation style is a convention governing the indentation of blocks of code to convey program structure. This article largely addresses the free-form languages, such as C and its descendants, but can be (and often ...
. A notable usage of MoonScript is the video game distribution website Itch.io.
* Haxe
Haxe is an open source high-level cross-platform programming language and compiler that can produce applications and source code, for many different computing platforms from one code-base. It is free and open-source software, released under the ...
supports compilation to a Lua target, supporting Lua 5.1-5.3 as well as LuaJIT
LuaJIT is a Tracing just-in-time compilation, tracing just in time compiler for the Lua (programming language), Lua programming language.
History
The LuaJIT project was started in 2005 by developer Mike Pall, released under the MIT open sourc ...
2.0 and 2.1.
* Fennel, a Lisp dialect that targets Lua.
* Urn, a Lisp
A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech.
Types
* A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...
dialect that is built on Lua.
* Amulet, an ML-like functional language
In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm where programs are constructed by applying and composing functions. It is a declarative programming paradigm in which function definitions are trees of expressions that ...
, whose compiler outputs Lua files.
Dialects
* LuaJIT
LuaJIT is a Tracing just-in-time compilation, tracing just in time compiler for the Lua (programming language), Lua programming language.
History
The LuaJIT project was started in 2005 by developer Mike Pall, released under the MIT open sourc ...
* Luau from Roblox
''Roblox'' () is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program games and play games created by other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 20 ...
, Lua 5.1 language with gradual typing
Gradual typing is a type system in which some variable (computer science), variables and expressions may be given types and the correctness of the typing is checked at compile time (which is static typing) and some expressions may be left untyped ...
and ergonomic additions.
* Ravi, JIT-enabled Lua 5.3 language with optional static typing. JIT is guided by type information.
* Shine, a fork of LuaJIT
LuaJIT is a Tracing just-in-time compilation, tracing just in time compiler for the Lua (programming language), Lua programming language.
History
The LuaJIT project was started in 2005 by developer Mike Pall, released under the MIT open sourc ...
with many extensions, including a module system and a macro system.
In addition, the Lua users community provides some ''power patches'' on top of the reference C implementation.
See also
* Comparison of programming languages
Programming languages are used for controlling the behavior of a machine (often a computer). Like natural languages, programming languages follow the rules for syntax and semantics.
There are thousands of programming languages and new ones are c ...
References
Further reading
* (The 1st ed. is availabl
online
)
*
*
*
*
* Chapters 6 and 7 are dedicated to Lua, while others look at software in Brazil more broadly.
*
*
*
*
*
* Interview with Roberto Ierusalimschy.
* How the embeddability of Lua impacted its design.
*
External links
*
Lua Users
Community
Lua Forum
LuaDist
Lua Rocks - Package manager
Projects in Lua
{{Portal bar, Free and open-source software, Computer programming
Articles with example C code
Brazilian inventions
Cross-platform free software
Cross-platform software
Dynamic programming languages
Dynamically typed programming languages
Embedded systems
Free compilers and interpreters
Free computer libraries
Free software programmed in C
Object-oriented programming languages
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Programming languages
Programming languages created in 1993
Prototype-based programming languages
Register-based virtual machines
Scripting languages
Software using the MIT license