4 – The Application Program Interface

This section describes the C API for Lua, that is, the set of C functions available to the host program to communicate with Lua. All API functions and related types and constants are declared in the header file lua.h.

Even when we use the term "function", any facility in the API may be provided as a macro instead. Except where stated otherwise, all such macros use each of their arguments exactly once (except for the first argument, which is always a Lua state), and so do not generate any hidden side-effects.

As in most C libraries, the Lua API functions do not check their arguments for validity or consistency. However, you can change this behavior by compiling Lua with the macro LUA_USE_APICHECK defined.

The Lua library is fully reentrant: it has no global variables. It keeps all information it needs in a dynamic structure, called the Lua state.

Each Lua state has one or more threads, which correspond to independent, cooperative lines of execution. The type lua_State (despite its name) refers to a thread. (Indirectly, through the thread, it also refers to the Lua state associated to the thread.)

A pointer to a thread must be passed as the first argument to every function in the library, except to lua_newstate, which creates a Lua state from scratch and returns a pointer to the main thread in the new state.

lua_isthread
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_isthread[-0, +0, –] int lua_isthread (lua_State *L, int index); Returns 1 if the value at the given

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lua_tothread
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_tothread[-0, +0, –] lua_State *lua_tothread (lua_State *L, int index); Converts the value at the given

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lua_pcall
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_pcall[-(nargs + 1), +(nresults|1), –] int lua_pcall (lua_State *L, int nargs, int nresults, int msgh);

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lua_pushglobaltable
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_pushglobaltable[-0, +1, –] void lua_pushglobaltable (lua_State *L); Pushes the global environment onto

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lua_getlocal
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/The Debug Interface

lua_getlocal[-0, +(0|1), –] const char *lua_getlocal (lua_State *L, const lua_Debug *ar, int n); Gets information

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lua_setglobal
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_setglobal[-1, +0, e] void lua_setglobal (lua_State *L, const char *name); Pops a value from

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lua_gethook
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/The Debug Interface

lua_gethook[-0, +0, –] lua_Hook lua_gethook (lua_State *L); Returns the current hook function.

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lua_rawgetp
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_rawgetp[-0, +1, –] int lua_rawgetp (lua_State *L, int index, const void *p); Pushes onto the stack

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lua_isnumber
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_isnumber[-0, +0, –] int lua_isnumber (lua_State *L, int index); Returns 1 if the value at the given

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lua_tonumber
  • References/Lua/Lua/API/Functions and Types

lua_tonumber[-0, +0, –] lua_Number lua_tonumber (lua_State *L, int index); Equivalent to

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