Lua is designed to be a lightweight embeddable scripting language. It is used for all sorts of applications, from games to web applications and image processing.
Lua is very easy to build and install. There are detailed instructions in the package but here is a simple terminal session that downloads the current release of Lua and builds it in common platforms:
The official definition of the Lua language is its reference manual, which describes the syntax and the semantics of Lua, the standard libraries, and the C API.
Lua is a powerful, efficient, lightweight, embeddable scripting language. It supports several programming styles: procedural, object-oriented, functional, data-driven, and data description.
Lua 5.3 Reference Manual The reference manual is the official definition of the Lua language. For a complete introduction to Lua programming, see the book Programming in Lua.
The official definition of the Lua language is its reference manual, which describes the syntax and the semantics of Lua, the standard libraries, and the C API.
If you are using the stand-alone Lua interpreter, all you have to do to run your first program is to call the interpreter (usually named lua) with the name of the text file that contains your program.
Abstract. Since its inception, in 1993, the Lua programming language has gone far beyond our most optimistic expectations. In this paper, we describe the trajectory of Lua, from its creation as an in-house language for two specific projects, until Lua 4.0, released in November 2000.
Lua's official website provides complete information about Lua, including an executive summary, tips on getting started, and updated documentation, especially the reference manual, which may differ slightly from the local copy distributed in this package.
