Lua

Lua is a powerful, efficient, lightweight, embeddable scripting language. Designed for extension, it supports procedural, object-oriented, functional, and data-driven programming. Lua is widely used in game development engines (such as Roblox and LÖVE), web servers (OpenResty/Nginx), and text editors (Neovim).

Installation

Install the latest stable Lua release (Lua 5.4), development libraries, and luarocks (the package manager for Lua modules) via apt:

apt update
apt install -y lua5.4 luarocks liblua5.4-dev

Verification

Check the installed Lua version:

lua5.4 -v

Writing and Running Code

Create a Lua script file named hello.lua:

print("Hello from Lua in TIDE!")

Executing the Script

Run the script using the lua5.4 interpreter:

lua5.4 hello.lua

Interactive Shell (REPL)

Start the interactive Lua shell:

lua5.4

To exit the REPL, press Ctrl+D or run os.exit().

Installing Rocks (Lua Package Manager)

Install Lua modules using luarocks:

luarocks install luasocket

Official Resources

• Official Website