luac.1 (3071B)
1 .\" $Id: luac.man,v 1.29 2011/11/16 13:53:40 lhf Exp $ 2 .TH LUAC 1 "$Date: 2011/11/16 13:53:40 $" 3 .SH NAME 4 luac \- Lua compiler 5 .SH SYNOPSIS 6 .B luac 7 [ 8 .I options 9 ] [ 10 .I filenames 11 ] 12 .SH DESCRIPTION 13 .B luac 14 is the Lua compiler. 15 It translates programs written in the Lua programming language 16 into binary files containing precompiled chunks 17 that can be later loaded and executed. 18 .LP 19 The main advantages of precompiling chunks are: 20 faster loading, 21 protecting source code from accidental user changes, 22 and 23 off-line syntax checking. 24 Precompiling does not imply faster execution 25 because in Lua chunks are always compiled into bytecodes before being executed. 26 .B luac 27 simply allows those bytecodes to be saved in a file for later execution. 28 Precompiled chunks are not necessarily smaller than the corresponding source. 29 The main goal in precompiling is faster loading. 30 .LP 31 In the command line, 32 you can mix 33 text files containing Lua source and 34 binary files containing precompiled chunks. 35 .B luac 36 produces a single output file containing the combined bytecodes 37 for all files given. 38 Executing the combined file is equivalent to executing the given files. 39 By default, 40 the output file is named 41 .BR luac.out , 42 but you can change this with the 43 .B \-o 44 option. 45 .LP 46 Precompiled chunks are 47 .I not 48 portable across different architectures. 49 Moreover, 50 the internal format of precompiled chunks 51 is likely to change when a new version of Lua is released. 52 Make sure you save the source files of all Lua programs that you precompile. 53 .LP 54 .SH OPTIONS 55 .TP 56 .B \-l 57 produce a listing of the compiled bytecode for Lua's virtual machine. 58 Listing bytecodes is useful to learn about Lua's virtual machine. 59 If no files are given, then 60 .B luac 61 loads 62 .B luac.out 63 and lists its contents. 64 Use 65 .B \-l \-l 66 for a full listing. 67 .TP 68 .BI \-o " file" 69 output to 70 .IR file , 71 instead of the default 72 .BR luac.out . 73 (You can use 74 .B "'\-'" 75 for standard output, 76 but not on platforms that open standard output in text mode.) 77 The output file may be one of the given files because 78 all files are loaded before the output file is written. 79 Be careful not to overwrite precious files. 80 .TP 81 .B \-p 82 load files but do not generate any output file. 83 Used mainly for syntax checking and for testing precompiled chunks: 84 corrupted files will probably generate errors when loaded. 85 If no files are given, then 86 .B luac 87 loads 88 .B luac.out 89 and tests its contents. 90 No messages are displayed if the file loads without errors. 91 .TP 92 .B \-s 93 strip debug information before writing the output file. 94 This saves some space in very large chunks, 95 but if errors occur when running a stripped chunk, 96 then the error messages may not contain the full information they usually do. 97 In particular, 98 line numbers and names of local variables are lost. 99 .TP 100 .B \-v 101 show version information. 102 .TP 103 .B \-\- 104 stop handling options. 105 .TP 106 .B \- 107 stop handling options and process standard input. 108 .SH "SEE ALSO" 109 .BR lua (1) 110 .br 111 The documentation at lua.org. 112 .SH DIAGNOSTICS 113 Error messages should be self explanatory. 114 .SH AUTHORS 115 R. Ierusalimschy, 116 L. H. de Figueiredo, 117 W. Celes 118 .\" EOF