luac man page on aLinux

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LUAC(1)								       LUAC(1)

NAME
       luac - Lua compiler

SYNOPSIS
       luac [ options ] [ filenames ]

DESCRIPTION
       luac  is	 the  Lua compiler.  It translates programs written in the Lua
       programming language into binary files that can be  latter  loaded  and
       executed.

       The  main  advantages  of precompiling chunks are: faster loading, pro‐
       tecting source code from user changes, and off-line syntax checking.

       Pre-compiling does not imply faster execution because in Lua chunks are
       always  compiled	 into  bytecodes  before  being executed.  luac simply
       allows those bytecodes to be saved in a file for later execution.

       luac produces a single output file containing  the  bytecodes  for  all
       source files given.  By default, the output file is named luac.out, but
       you can change this with the -o option.

       The binary files created by luac are portable to all architectures with
       the  same  word size.  This means that binary files created on a 32-bit
       platform (such as Intel) can be read without change in  another	32-bit
       platform	 (such	as  Sparc), even if the byte order (``endianness'') is
       different.  On the other hand, binary files created on a	 16-bit	 plat‐
       form cannot be read in a 32-bit platform, nor vice-versa.

       In  the	command line, you can mix text files containing Lua source and
       binary files containing precompiled chunks.  This is useful to  combine
       several	precompiled chunks, even from different (but compatible) plat‐
       forms, into a single precompiled chunk.

       You can use - to indicate the standard input as a source file and -- to
       signal  the  end	 of  options (that is, all remaining arguments will be
       treated as files even if they start with -).

       The internal format of the binary files produced by luac is  likely  to
       change  when  a	new  version  of Lua is released.  So, save the source
       files of all Lua programs that you precompile.

OPTIONS
       Options must be separate.

       -l     produce a listing of the compiled	 bytecode  for	Lua's  virtual
	      machine.	 Listing bytecodes is useful to learn about Lua's vir‐
	      tual machine.  If no files are given, then luac  loads  luac.out
	      and lists its contents.

       -o file
	      output  to  file,	 instead  of the default luac.out.  The output
	      file may be a source file because all files  are	loaded	before
	      the  output  file	 is written.  Be careful not to overwrite pre‐
	      cious files.

       -p     load files but do not generate any output file.  Used mainly for
	      syntax  checking	and  for testing precompiled chunks: corrupted
	      files will probably generate errors  when	 loaded.   Lua	always
	      performs a thorough integrity test on precompiled chunks.	 Byte‐
	      code that passes this test is completely safe, in the sense that
	      it will not break the interpreter.  However, there is no guaran‐
	      tee that such code does anything sensible.  (None can be	given,
	      because  the  halting  problem  is unsolvable.)  If no files are
	      given, then luac loads luac.out and tests its contents.  No mes‐
	      sages are displayed if the file passes the integrity test.

       -s     strip  debug  information	 before writing the output file.  This
	      saves some space in very large chunks, but if errors occur  when
	      running  these  chunks,  then the error messages may not contain
	      the full information they usually do (line numbers and names  of
	      locals are lost).

       -v     show version information.

FILES
       luac.out	      default output file

SEE ALSO
       lua(1)
       http://www.lua.org/

DIAGNOSTICS
       Error messages should be self explanatory.

AUTHORS
       L.  H.  de  Figueiredo, R. Ierusalimschy and W. Celes (lua@tecgraf.puc-
       rio.br)

			      2002/12/13 11:45:12		       LUAC(1)
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