How to Manually Install Lua on Windows

VIDEO LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5D_h2X8LCk


cl /MD /O2 /c /DLUA_BUILD_AS_DLL *.c

This line compiles all files in the directory with the ".c" extension without linking them (/c) with the fastest possible (/O2) multithreaded (/MD) code

NOTICE! IN THE NEXT FEW STEPS X.X MEANS YOUR CURRENT LUA VERSION NUMBER, E.G. 5.2


link /DLL /IMPLIB:luaX.X.lib /OUT:luaX.X.dll *.obj

This will create luaX.X.dll and luaX.X.lib out of all ".obj" files

REMEMBER TO RENAME "lua.obj" AND "luac.obj" WITH THE EXTENSION ".o" SO THEY WON'T BE SELECTED!!


link /OUT:lua.exe lua.o luaX.X.lib

This will create lua.exe (interpreter) from lua.o using the luaX.X.lib library


lib /OUT:luaX.X-static.lib *.obj

This will create luaX.X-static.lib from all ".obj" files, similar to step 2, but with no dll and this is using the "lib" command


link /OUT:luac.exe luac.o luaX.X-static.lib

This will create luac.exe (compiler) from luac.o using the luaX.X-static.lib library



This is how I do my directories (parentheses indicate what the folder represents). This also shows notable file locations.

/Lua
  /X.X
    /doc (documentation)
    /src (source code)
    /lua (lua libraries)
    /lib (static libraries we created)
    /include (relevant header files)
      /lauxlib.h
      /lua.h
      /lua.hpp
      /luaconf.h
      /lualib.h
    /lua.exe
    /luaX.X.dll
    /luac.exe



Environment Variables, ? represents a wildcard

The lua install directory
LUA_DIR = C:\Program Files\Lua\X.X

Where to look for .dll files (C libraries)
LUA_CPATH = ?.dll;%LUA_DIR%\?.dll

Where to look for .lua files (Lua libraries)
LUA_PATH = ?.lua;%LUA_DIR%\lua\?.lua

Also add the contents of LUA_DIR to PATH



Lua 5.2 test code

function is_even(n)
  if bit32.band(n,1) == 0 then -- fancy bitwise way to check if a number if even (5.2+ only)
    print('Even')
  else
    print('Odd')
  end
end



To setup in Visual Studio 2012

go to C/C++ -> General and add $(LUA_DIR)\include to additional include directories.

go to Linker -> General and add $(LUA_DIR)\lib to additional library dir

go to Linker -> Input and add luaX.X.lib to additional dependencies.



C API test code

#include "stdio.h"

-- C++ header for the C API
#include "lua.hpp"

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  lua_State *L = luaL_newstate();
  luaL_openlibs(L); -- open the default Lua libraries

  if (luaL_dofile(L, "test.lua")) { -- execute the file
    const char* err = lua_tostring(L, -1); -- if there was an issue, get the string from the top of the stack...
    printf(err); -- ...and print it out
  }

  lua_close(L); -- close the lua state

  getchar();
  return 0;
}