6 – Standard Libraries

The standard Lua libraries provide useful functions that are implemented directly through the C API. Some of these functions provide essential services to the language (e.g., type and getmetatable); others provide access to "outside" services (e.g., I/O); and others could be implemented in Lua itself, but are quite useful or have critical performance requirements that deserve an implementation in C (e.g., table.sort).

All libraries are implemented through the official C API and are provided as separate C modules. Currently, Lua has the following standard libraries:

  • basic library (§6.1);
  • coroutine library (§6.2);
  • package library (§6.3);
  • string manipulation (§6.4);
  • basic UTF-8 support (§6.5);
  • table manipulation (§6.6);
  • mathematical functions (§6.7) (sin, log, etc.);
  • input and output (§6.8);
  • operating system facilities (§6.9);
  • debug facilities (§6.10).

Except for the basic and the package libraries, each library provides all its functions as fields of a global table or as methods of its objects.

To have access to these libraries, the C host program should call the luaL_openlibs function, which opens all standard libraries. Alternatively, the host program can open them individually by using luaL_requiref to call luaopen_base (for the basic library), luaopen_package (for the package library), luaopen_coroutine (for the coroutine library), luaopen_string (for the string library), luaopen_utf8 (for the UTF8 library), luaopen_table (for the table library), luaopen_math (for the mathematical library), luaopen_io (for the I/O library), luaopen_os (for the operating system library), and luaopen_debug (for the debug library). These functions are declared in lualib.h.

file:seek()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/Input and Output Facilities

file:seek ([whence [, offset]]) Sets and gets the file position, measured from the beginning of the file, to the position given by offset plus a base specified by

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debug.setupvalue()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/The Debug Library

debug.setupvalue (f, up, value) This function assigns the value value to the upvalue with index up of the function f. The function returns

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math.maxinteger
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/Mathematical Functions

math.maxinteger

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debug.getmetatable()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/The Debug Library

debug.getmetatable (value) Returns the metatable of the given value or nil if it does not have a metatable.

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io.output()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/Input and Output Facilities

io.output ([file]) Similar to io.input, but operates

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tonumber()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/Basic Functions

tonumber (e [, base]) When called with no base, tonumber tries to convert its argument to a number. If the argument is already a number or a string convertible

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math.tan()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/Mathematical Functions

math.tan (x) Returns the tangent of x (assumed to be in radians).

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math.ult()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/Mathematical Functions

math.ult (m, n) Returns a boolean, true if and only if integer m is below integer n when they are compared as unsigned integers.

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file:lines()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/Input and Output Facilities

file:lines (···) Returns an iterator function that, each time it is called, reads the file according to the given formats. When no format is given, uses "l" as a

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string.sub()
  • References/Lua/Lua/Standard Libraries/String Manipulation

string.sub (s, i [, j])sijijjstring.sub(s,1,j)sjstring.sub(s

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