LUAC(1) 						      General Commands Manual							   LUAC(1)

NAME

       luac - Lua compiler

SYNOPSIS

       luac [ options ] [ filenames ]

DESCRIPTION

       luac  is  the  Lua compiler.  It translates programs written in the Lua programming language into binary files that can be later loaded and
       executed.

       The main advantages of precompiling chunks are: faster loading, protecting source code from accidental user changes,  and  off-line  syntax
       checking.

       Pre-compiling  does not imply faster execution because in Lua chunks are always compiled into bytecodes before being executed.  luac simply
       allows those bytecodes to be saved in a file for later execution.

       Pre-compiled chunks are not necessarily smaller than the corresponding source.  The main goal in pre-compiling is faster loading.

       The binary files created by luac are portable only among architectures with the same word size and byte order.

       luac produces a single output file containing the bytecodes for all source files given.	By default, the output file is named luac.out, but
       you can change this with the -o option.

       In  the	command line, you can mix text files containing Lua source and binary files containing precompiled chunks.  This is useful to com-
       bine several precompiled chunks, even from different (but compatible) platforms, into a single precompiled chunk.

       You can use '-' to indicate the standard input as a source file and '--' to signal the end of options (that  is,  all  remaining  arguments
       will be treated as files even if they start with '-').

       The  internal  format  of the binary files produced by luac is likely to change when a new version of Lua is released.  So, save the source
       files of all Lua programs that you precompile.

OPTIONS

       Options must be separate.

       -l     produce a listing of the compiled bytecode for Lua's virtual machine.  Listing bytecodes is useful  to  learn  about  Lua's  virtual
	      machine.	If no files are given, then luac loads luac.out and lists its contents.

       -o file
	      output to file, instead of the default luac.out.	(You can use '-' for standard output, but not on platforms that open standard out-
	      put in text mode.)  The output file may be a source file because all files are loaded before the output file is written.	Be careful
	      not to overwrite precious files.

       -p     load files but do not generate any output file.  Used mainly for syntax checking and for testing precompiled chunks: corrupted files
	      will probably generate errors when loaded.  Lua always performs a thorough integrity test  on  precompiled  chunks.   Bytecode  that
	      passes  this test is completely safe, in the sense that it will not break the interpreter.  However, there is no guarantee that such
	      code does anything sensible.  (None can be given, because the halting problem is unsolvable.)  If no  files  are	given,	then  luac
	      loads luac.out and tests its contents.  No messages are displayed if the file passes the integrity test.

       -s     strip  debug  information before writing the output file.  This saves some space in very large chunks, but if errors occur when run-
	      ning a stripped chunk, then the error messages may not contain the full information they usually do.  For instance, line numbers and
	      names of local variables are lost.

       -v     show version information.

FILES

       luac.out       default output file

SEE ALSO

       lua(1)
       http://www.lua.org/

DIAGNOSTICS

       Error messages should be self explanatory.

AUTHORS

       L. H. de Figueiredo, R. Ierusalimschy and W. Celes

							   $Date: 2006/01/06 16:03:34 $ 						   LUAC(1)