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LUAC(1)                     General Commands Manual                    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  later  loaded  and
       executed.
       The  main  advantages  of precompiling chunks are: faster loading, pro-
       tecting source code from accidental 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.
       Pre-compiled  chunks are not necessarily smaller than the corresponding
       source.  The main goal in pre-compiling is faster loading.
       The binary files created by luac are portable only among  architectures
       with the same word size and byte order.
       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.
       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.  (You can use
              '-' for standard output, but not on platforms that open standard
              output  in  text  mode.)   The  output file may be a source file
              because all files are loaded before the output file is  written.
              Be careful not to overwrite precious 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 a stripped chunk, then the error messages may  not  con-
              tain  the  full information they usually do.  For instance, line
              numbers and names of local variables 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

                         $Date: 2006/01/06 16:03:34 $                  LUAC(1)