Single static executable, batteries-included, Lua 5.1 interpreter. A fat GopherLua amalgamation of modules in Go and Lua.

Lua is a good language but no one wants to use it for general-purpose scripting. Complaints are 1-based indexing and missing libraries. The latter is a valid concern. The 5.2+ split also does not help. I was convinced that GopherLua would be a good base for a kitchen-sink interpreter. Writing wrappers for the vast selection of Go packages would be a breeze.

Since GopherLua is an implementation of Lua 5.1, you can use the official Lua 5.1 reference manual: Lua 5.1 Manual. Other resources are also useful just make sure they do not target 5.2+ versions. Search for PDFs of Lua 5.1 cheatsheets. The Learn in in 15 minutes series also has an entry for Lua.

Tests are in the tests directory. We are using u-test. Within the test code is the documentation in AsciiDoc. Generated docs are in the docs directory. Check the scripts/docs directory for the command line to generate the docs.

Besides general purpose scripting, a more specific use for me right now is using Lua for writing web apps. You can write it dynamic style like PHP but instead you have Lua. Another idea is hooking Go packages that interface with DevOps things. Instead of YAML you can program DevOps tools in Lua.

Wonder how it compares to PUC-Rio Lua 5.1.5 and LuaJIT2?

Here’s a benchmark for object access time. Check the bench/ directory for the code. The results are from the default 100M runs. GopherLua is fast enough for unconvoluted work. It also demonstrates that LuaJIT is too smart for these benchmarks.

Before you go disabling function inlining to reduce the executable size; here are the benchmarks for it.