hslua

A Lua language interpreter embedding in Haskell

Version on this page:0.9.2
LTS Haskell 22.13:2.3.1
Stackage Nightly 2024-03-14:2.3.1
Latest on Hackage:2.3.1

See all snapshots hslua appears in

MIT licensed by Gracjan Polak, Ömer Sinan Ağacan
Maintained by [email protected]
This version can be pinned in stack with:hslua-0.9.2@sha256:53e53b0e421053c2ec6de25a0c17ce4a4910a9dae092cc5d0586046f6e8a6a05,8014
Used by 1 package in nightly-2017-10-28(full list with versions):

hslua – Lua interpreter interface for Haskell

Build Status AppVeyor Status Coverage Status Hackage

Hslua provides bindings, wrappers, types, and helper functions to bridge haskell and lua.

Build flags

The following cabal build flags are supported:

  • system-lua: Use the locally installed Lua version instead of the version shipped as part of HsLua.

  • use-pkgconfig: Use pkg-config to discover library and include paths. This is used only when the system-lua flag is set or implied.

  • lua501: Build against Lua 5.1; this implies the flag system-lua as well.

  • lua502: Build against Lua 5.2; this implies the flag system-lua as well.

  • luajit: Build against LuaJIT; this implies the flag system-lua as well.

  • allow-unsafe-gc: Allow optimizations which make Lua’s garbage collection potentially unsafe; haskell finalizers must be handled with extreme care. This is enabled per default, as this is rarely a problem in practice.

  • apicheck: Compile Lua with its API checks enabled.

  • lua_32bits: Compile Lua for a 32-bits system (e.g., i386, PowerPC G4).

Example: using a different lua version

To use a system-wide installed Lua/LuaJIT when linking hslua as a dependency, build/install your package using --constraint="hslua +system-lua" or for LuaJIT: --constraint="hslua +luajit". For example, you can install Pandoc with hslua that uses system-wide LuaJIT like this:

cabal install pandoc --constraint="hslua +system-lua +luajit"

or with stack:

stack install pandoc --flag=hslua:luajit

FAQ

Where are the coroutine related functions? Yielding from a coroutine works via longjmp, which plays very badly with Haskell’s RTS. Tests to get coroutines working with HsLua were unsuccessful. No coroutine related functions are exported from the default module for that reason. However, raw bindings to the C API functions are still provided in Foreign.Lua.RawBindings. If you get coroutines to work, or just believe that there should be wrapper functions for other reasons, we’d love to hear from you.

Why are there no predefined stack instances for default numerical types? HsLua defines instances for the FromLuaStack and ToLuaStack type-classes only if the following law holds: return x == push x *> peek x. Lua can be compiled with customized number types, making it impossible to verify the correctness of the above equation. Furthermore, instances for numerical types can be based on those of LuaInteger and LuaNumber and are easy to write. Therefor hslua doesn’t provide any such instances.

Changes

Changelog

0.9.2

  • Add cabal flag ‘export-dynamic’: Default behavior is to include all symbols in the dynamic symbol table, as this enables users to load dynamic lua libraries. However, it is sometimes desirable to disable, e.g., when compiling a fully static binary. See jgm/pandoc#3986.

0.9.1

  • Increase user-friendlyness of error messages: The error message returned by toHaskellFunction hinted at the fact that the failing function is a Haskell function. This is mostly unnecessary information and might have confused users.

0.9.0

  • Added cabal flag to allow fully safe garbage collection: Lua garbage collection can occur in most of the API functions, even in those usually not calling back into haskell and hence marked as optimizable. The effect of this is that finalizers which call Haskell functions will cause the program to hang. A new flag allow-unsafe-gc is introduced and enabled by default. Disabling this flag will mark more C API functions as potentially calling back into Haskell. This has a serious performance impact.
  • FromLuaStack and ToLuaStack instances for lazy ByteStrings are added.
  • None-string error messages are handled properly: Lua allows error messages to be of any type, but the haskell error handlers expected string values. Tables, booleans, and other non-string values are now handled as well and converted to strings.

0.8.0

  • Use newtype definitions instead of type aliases for LuaNumber and LuaInteger. This makes it easier to ensure the correct numeric instances in situations where Lua might have been compiled with 32-bit numbers.
  • Instances of FromLuaStack and ToLuaStack for Int are removed. The correctness of these instances cannot be guaranteed if Lua was compiled with a non-standard integer type.

0.7.1

  • The flag lua_32bits was added to allow users to compile Lua for 32-bit systems.
  • When reading a list, throw an error if the lua value isn’t a table instead of silently returning an empty list.

0.7.0

  • Tuples from pairs to octuples have been made instances of FromLuaStack and ToLuaStack.
  • New functions dostring and dofile are provided to load and run strings and files in a single step.
  • LuaStatus was renamed to Status, the Lua prefix was removed from its type constructors.
  • The constructor ErrFile was added to Status. It is returned by loadfile if the file cannot be read.
  • Remove unused FFI bindings and unused types, including all functions unsafe to use from within Haskell and the library functions added with 0.5.0. Users with special requirements should define their own wrappers and raw bindings.
  • The module Foreign.Lua.Api.SafeBindings was merge into Foreign.Lua.Api.RawBindings.
  • FFI bindings are changed to use newtypes where sensible, most notably StackIndex, NumArgs, and NumResults, but also the newly introduced newtypes StatusCode, TypeCode, and LuaBool.
  • Add functions tointegerx and tonumberx which can be used to get and check values from the stack in a single step.
  • The signature of concat was changed from Int -> Lua () to NumArgs -> Lua ().
  • The signature of loadfile was changed from String -> Lua Int to String -> Lua Status.
  • The type LTYPE was renamed to Type, its constructors were renamed to follow the pattern Type<Typename>. LuaRelation was renamed to RelationalOperator, the Lua prefix was removed from its constructors.
  • Add function tolist to allow getting a generic list from the stack without having to worry about the overlapping instance with [Char].

0.6.0

  • Supported Lua Versions now include Lua 5.2 and Lua 5.3. LuaJIT and Lua 5.1 remain supported as well.
  • Flag use-pkgconfig was added to allow discovery of library and include paths via pkg-config. Setting a specific Lua version flag now implies system-lua. (Sean Proctor)
  • The module was renamed from Scripting.Lua to Foreign.Lua. The code is now split over multiple sub-modules. Files processed with hsc2hs are restricted to Foreign.Lua.Api.
  • A Lua monad (reader monad over LuaState) is introduced. Functions which took a LuaState as their first argument are changed into monadic functions within that monad.
  • Error handling has been redesigned completely. A new LuaException was introduced and is thrown in unexpected situations. Errors in lua which are leading to a longjmp are now caught with the help of additional C wrapper functions. Those no longer lead to uncontrolled program termination but are converted into a LuaException.
  • peek no longer returns Maybe a but just a. A LuaException is thrown if an error occurs (i.e. in situtations where Nothing would have been returned previously).
  • The StackValue typeclass has been split into FromLuaStack and ToLuaStack. Instances not satisfying the law x == push x *> peek (-1) have been dropped.
  • Documentation of API functions was improved. Most docstrings have been copied from the official Lua manual, enriched with proper markup and links, and changed to properly describe hslua specifics when necessary.
  • Example programs have been moved to a separate repository.
  • Unused files were removed. (Sean Proctor)

0.5.0

  • New raw functions for luaopen_base, luaopen_package, luaopen_string, luaopen_table, luaopen_math, luaopen_io, luaopen_os, luaopen_debug and their high-level wrappers (with names openbase, opentable etc.) implemented.
  • Remove custom versions of loadfile and loadstring.
  • Drop support for GHC versions < 7.8, avoid compiler warnings.
  • Ensure no symbols are stripped when linking the bundled lua interpreter.
  • Simplify tostring function definition. (Sean Proctor)
  • Explicitly deprecate strlen. (Sean Proctor)
  • Add links to lua documentation for functions wrapping the official lua C API. (Sean Proctor).

0.4.1

  • Bugfix(#30): tolist wasn’t popping elements of the list from stack.

0.4.0

  • pushstring and tostring now uses ByteString instead of [Char].
  • StackValue [Char] instance is removed, StackValue ByteString is added.
  • StackValue a => StackValue [a] instance is added. It pushes a Lua array to the stack. pushlist, islist and tolist functions are added.
  • Type errors in Haskell functions now propagated differently. See the Scripting.Lua documentation for detailed explanation. This should fix segfaults reported several times.
  • lua_error function is removed, it’s never safe to call in Haskell.

Related issues and pull requests: #12, #26, #24, #23, #18.

0.3.14

  • Pkgconf-based setup removed. Cabal is now using extra-libraries to link with Lua.
  • luajit flag is added to link hslua with LuaJIT.

0.3.13

  • Small bugfix related with GHCi running under Windows.

0.3.12

  • pushrawhsfunction and registerrawhsfunction functions are added.
  • apicheck flag is added to Cabal package to enable Lua API checking. (useful for debugging)

0.3.11

  • luaL_ref and luaL_unref functions are added.