Lua Programming

Lua (/ˈluːə/ LOO-ə; from Portuguese: lua [ˈlu.(w)ɐ] meaning moon) is a lightweight, high-level, multi-paradigm programming language created in 1993 by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, and Waldemar Celes.

Lua is implemented in C and has simple API which helps it interface easily with other languages.

This programming language is also related to (other than C/C++): Python, Java, JavaScript, as well as a few concepts of Perl, etc.

Lua is mainly used for embedded systems and for game development. Some games that are scripted in Lua include: World of Warcraft, Roblox games, Angry Birds (video game), etc.

Some other sources that use Lua include Nmap and Adobe Lightroom.

Lua's latest version is version 5.4.3 and was released @2020-1.

Some text editors that use Lua include: SciTE, Notepad++ with Autocompletion Plugin, Visual Studio with BabeLua Plugin, ZeroBrane Studio and Atom Editor with the Love-IDE collection of packages.

A PDF version is available. (info)

At first in its release it was used as home programming language then later appeared publicly. The most famous Lua book is by Roberto Ierusalimschy, the creator of Lua and it's called "Programming in Lua fourth edition"

According to 2021 statistics so far, Lua is used 0.47 percent out of all programming languages.

This book has a collection for ordering a printed copy of this book for a fee. (edit) (help)

A printable version of Lua Programming is available. (edit it)

Introduction: This chapter introduces the Lua language and gives a brief overview of its purpose and history. It also introduces some programming concepts.
Expressions: This chapters provides comprehensive coverage of expressions, operators and types.
Statements: This chapter describes the statements available in Lua.
Functions: This chapter explains the purpose and usage of functions and describes the syntax for function definitions.
Tables: This chapter covers table constructors, metatables, iterators and sorting.
Standard libraries: This chapter describes the functionality offered by the standard libraries.
Appendix: Software testing: This appendix gives information about testing programs written in Lua.
Glossary: This glossary contains accurate definitions of all significant terms used in the book and relevant to the subject.
Index: This index contains a list of all the topics and functions covered in the book and references to the locations in the book where these topics and functions are described.

Lua Programming

Contents