LUA(1)							      General Commands Manual							    LUA(1)

NAME

       lua - Lua interpreter

SYNOPSIS

       lua [ options ] [ script [ args ] ]

DESCRIPTION

       lua  is	the stand-alone Lua interpreter.  It loads and executes Lua programs, either in textual source form or in precompiled binary form.
       (Precompiled binaries are output by luac, the Lua compiler.)  lua can be used as a batch interpreter and also interactively.

       The given options (see below) are executed and then the Lua program in file script is loaded and executed.  The given args are available to
       script  as  strings  in	a  global  table named arg.  If these arguments contain spaces or other characters special to the shell, then they
       should be quoted (but note that the quotes will be removed by the shell).  The arguments in arg start  at  0,  which  contains  the  string
       `script'.  The index of the last argument is stored in arg.n.  The arguments given in the command line before script, including the name of
       the interpreter, are available in negative indices in arg.

       At the very start, before even handling the command line, lua executes the contents of the environment variable LUA_INIT, if it is defined.
       If the value of LUA_INIT is of the form `@filename', then filename is executed.	Otherwise, the string is assumed to be a Lua statement and
       is executed.

       Options start with - and are described below.  You can use -- to signal the end of options.

       If no arguments are given, then -v -i is assumed when the standard input is a terminal; otherwise, - is assumed.

       In interactive mode, lua prompts the user, reads lines from the standard input, and executes them as they are read.  If	a  line  does  not
       contain	a  complete  statement,  then  a secondary prompt is displayed and lines are read until a complete statement is formed or a syntax
       error is found.	So, one way to interrupt the reading of an incomplete statement is to force a syntax error: adding a `;' in the middle	of
       a  statement is a sure way of forcing a syntax error (except inside multiline strings and comments; these must be closed explicitly).  If a
       line starts with `=', then lua displays the values of all the expressions in the remainder of the line. The expressions must  be  separated
       by  commas.   The  primary  prompt is the value of the global variable _PROMPT, if this value is a string; otherwise, the default prompt is
       used.  Similarly, the secondary prompt is the value of the global variable _PROMPT2.  So, to change  the  prompts,  set	the  corresponding
       variable  to a string of your choice.  You can do that after calling the interpreter or on the command line with _PROMPT='lua: ', for exam-
       ple.  (Note the need for quotes, because the string contains a space.)  The default prompts are ``> '' and ``>> ''.

OPTIONS

       -      load and execute the standard input as a file, that is, not interactively, even when the standard input is a terminal.

       -e stat
	      execute statement stat.  You need to quote stat if it contains spaces, quotes, or other characters special to the shell.

       -i     enter interactive mode after script is executed.

       -l file
	      call require(file) before executing script.  Typically used to load libraries (hence the letter l).

       -v     show version information.

       -P     suppress the creation of a standard LUA_PATH variable. Use this if you need to run  scripts  which  conflict  with  system-installed
	      libraries.

SEE ALSO

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

DIAGNOSTICS

       Error messages should be self explanatory.

AUTHORS

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

       <lua@tecgraf.puc-rio.br>

       Debian modifications to the manpage by Daniel Silverstone

       <dsilvers@debian.org>

								2003/04/02 00:05:20							    LUA(1)