Lua is a programming language originally designed for extending applications, but also frequently used as a general-purpose, stand-alone language. It combines simple procedural syntax (similar to Pascal) with powerful data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. It is dynamically typed, interpreted from bytecodes, and has automatic memory management, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping. It is implemented as a small library of C functions, written in ANSI C, and compiles unmodified in all known platforms. The implementation goals are simplicity, efficiency, portability, and low embedding cost. It has been used on games such as World of Warcraft, FarCry and Angry Birds, among others.
| Tags | Software Development Interpreters Libraries |
|---|---|
| Licenses | MIT/X |
| Operating Systems | OS Independent |
| Implementation | Other Scripting Engines C C++ |
Recent releases


Release Notes: This version fixes all known bugs.


Release Notes: This release adds better handling of string collisions based on a random seed. This work version is meant to let the community assess the usefulness and the effectiveness of this experimental feature.


Release Notes: This is a bugfix release. All known bugs from 5.1.4 have been fixed.


Release Notes: This is the first major version since 2006. It adds yieldable pcall and metamethods, a new lexical scheme for globals, ephemeron tables, a new library for bitwise operations, light C functions, an emergency garbage collector, a goto statement, and finalizers for tables.


Release Notes: Documentation and portability fixes.