1LUAC(1)                     General Commands Manual                    LUAC(1)
2
3
4

NAME

6       luac - Lua compiler
7

SYNOPSIS

9       luac [ options ] [ filenames ]
10

DESCRIPTION

12       luac  is  the  Lua compiler.  It translates programs written in the Lua
13       programming language into binary files  containing  precompiled  chunks
14       that can be later loaded and executed.
15
16       The  main  advantages  of precompiling chunks are: faster loading, pro‐
17       tecting source code from accidental user changes, and  off-line  syntax
18       checking.   Precompiling does not imply faster execution because in Lua
19       chunks are always compiled into bytecodes before being executed.   luac
20       simply  allows  those  bytecodes to be saved in a file for later execu‐
21       tion.  Precompiled chunks are not necessarily smaller than  the  corre‐
22       sponding source.  The main goal in precompiling is faster loading.
23
24       In  the  command line, you can mix text files containing Lua source and
25       binary files containing precompiled chunks.   luac  produces  a  single
26       output  file  containing  the  combined  bytecodes for all files given.
27       Executing the combined file is equivalent to executing the given files.
28       By  default, the output file is named luac.out, but you can change this
29       with the -o option.
30
31       Precompiled chunks are not  portable  across  different  architectures.
32       Moreover, the internal format of precompiled chunks is likely to change
33       when a new version of Lua is released.  Make sure you save  the  source
34       files of all Lua programs that you precompile.
35

OPTIONS

37       -l     produce  a  listing  of  the compiled bytecode for Lua's virtual
38              machine.  Listing bytecodes is useful to learn about Lua's  vir‐
39              tual  machine.   If no files are given, then luac loads luac.out
40              and lists its contents.  Use -l -l for a full listing.
41
42       -o file
43              output to file, instead of the default luac.out.  (You  can  use
44              '-' for standard output, but not on platforms that open standard
45              output in text mode.)  The output file may be one of  the  given
46              files  because  all  files  are loaded before the output file is
47              written.  Be careful not to overwrite precious files.
48
49       -p     load files but do not generate any output file.  Used mainly for
50              syntax  checking  and  for testing precompiled chunks: corrupted
51              files will probably generate errors when loaded.   If  no  files
52              are  given, then luac loads luac.out and tests its contents.  No
53              messages are displayed if the file loads without errors.
54
55       -s     strip debug information before writing the  output  file.   This
56              saves  some space in very large chunks, but if errors occur when
57              running a stripped chunk, then the error messages may  not  con‐
58              tain  the full information they usually do.  In particular, line
59              numbers and names of local variables are lost.
60
61       -v     show version information.
62
63       --     stop handling options.
64
65       -      stop handling options and process standard input.
66

SEE ALSO

68       lua(1)
69       The documentation at lua.org.
70

DIAGNOSTICS

72       Error messages should be self explanatory.
73

AUTHORS

75       R. Ierusalimschy, L. H. de Figueiredo, W. Celes
76
77
78
79                         $Date: 2011/11/16 13:53:40 $                  LUAC(1)
Impressum