Lua

Lua can also be used as a general-purpose, stand-alone language.

It is currently the leading scripting language in game development.

What is new in this release:

• The main features in Lua 5.2 are yieldable pcall and metamethods, new lexical scheme for globals, ephemeron tables, new library for bitwise operations, light C functions, emergency garbage collector, goto statement, and finalizers for tables.

What is new in version 5.2.4:

• The main features in Lua 5.2 are yieldable pcall and metamethods, new lexical scheme for globals, ephemeron tables, new library for bitwise operations, light C functions, emergency garbage collector, goto statement, and finalizers for tables.

What is new in version 5.2.0 rc2:

• Documentation and portability fixes.

What is new in version 5.2.0 work5:

• Updated documentation.
• New C API for unsigned integers.
• Bit library renamed to bit32; functions also renamed.
• Wider support for fast conversion from double to integer.

What is new in version 5.2.0 work4:

• Module and luaL_register deprecated, replaced by luaL_newlib and luaL_setfuncs.
• New function luaL_requiref.
• Caching of Lua closures for resue.
• Version-specific environment variables (LUA_PATH_5_2, etc.).
• New class '%g' in patterns.
• debug.getlocal gets parameter names of inactive functions.
• New functions lua_tonumberx and lua_tointegerx.

What is new in version 5.1.4:

• Language:
• New module system.
• New semantics for control variables of fors.
• New semantics for setn/getn.
• New syntax/semantics for varargs.
• New long strings and comments.
• New `mod' operator (`%')
• New length operator #t
• Metatables for all types
• API:
• New functions: lua_createtable, lua_get(set)field, lua_push(to)integer.
• User supplies memory allocator (lua_open becomes lua_newstate).
• luaopen_* functions must be called through Lua.
• Implementation:
• New configuration scheme via luaconf.h.
• Incremental garbage collection.
• Better handling of end-of-line in the lexer.
• Fully reentrant parser (new Lua function `load')
• Better support for 64-bit machines.
• Native loadlib support for Mac OS X.
• Standard distribution in only one library (lualib.a merged into lua.a)