LUA - The language and engine

[Evilbuffy]

Hello Guys! I'm Buffy, and today I'm going to explain in a short and simple way about the scripting language lua, and a bit about LuaEngins which is talked about a lot recently.

LUA - The scripting language:

In computing, Lua is a lightweight, reflective, imperative and functional programming language, designed as a scripting language with extensible semantics as a primary goal. The name comes from the Portuguese word lua meaning "moon". Lua has a relatively simple C API compared to other scripting languages.

Perhaps because both languages were influenced by Scheme, Lua and JavaScript feature many common semantics, despite the great differences in syntax. In its design, Lua is also similar to Icon, as both of them were influenced by SNOBOL.

LUA - The engine:

LUA engines recognize lua scripts, and allow them access on servers you wish to use them on. Lua engines are normally found in the core you download from ArcEmu and other companies like that one.

There has recently been a lot of discussion regarding changing out you're lua engine, because it doesn't work properly for you.

What you can do though, is that you can degrade and upgrade the lua engine as much as you want. But upgrading and degrading the lua engine causes trouble in other ways. It may cause issues, which gives problems for the lua engine recognizing scripts, and it will not be able to synchronize with the server. Stuff will get unstable, and bugged. Some claim that you actually can change the whole Lua engine, but I'm afraid I'm not sure about this. It may be correct, and may be not. At least I've heard it's not possible with ArcEmu, but that it's possible with Ascent. Personally I've never used Ascent myself, I've always used ArcEmu.

If you wish to use the lua language on you're server, make sure you have enabled lua in you're core by following this guide;

#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#
# Scripting Engine Setup
#
# Ascent can support multiple script backends via the means of loading
.dll files for them.
# This section in the config can enable/disable those backends.
#
# LUA
# If you would like to enable the LUA scripting backend, enable this.
# Default: 0
#
#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#-#

<ScriptBackends LUA="0"
AS="0">

Make sure to change " 0 " to " 1 ".

You may have to enable lua through the .dll file, and I'm afraid I've never done that and don't have knowledge about enabling lua through the .dll
But in the latest cores you will not have to do this, as fare as I know.


This is just a simple guide I made, to make it a bit easier for you guys to know and understand what the lua language is used for.
I hope it's for help, enjoy!



- Buffy

[TheZaronz]

It's named Lua not LUA.

[Mitron]

well nice explaining tho +rep ^^

[Evilbuffy]

I've edited my post, because of a lot of people claiming it was false. I do not wish to fight and start a argue on the thread, because of this.

Please understand that I'm still in the learning progress.


- Buffy

[CoolManBob]

It is no problem EvilBuffy we are all constantly learning but just know that what GastricPenguin said is true, one can very easily change anything within the engine itself, from rewriting scripting functions, to changing the way it "wraps" to changing it into a Python Engine you could very easily integrate Python and Lua into the emulator to allow yourself greater range of scripting possibilities, but If i was to do that I would just remove Lua support all together.

Also I WOULD NOT recommend changing anything in the engine to anyone here except a few people, editing anything can have some undesirable consequences. Only those who know C++ very well (not able to write a couple scripts; that does not constitute one knowing C++) should actually be doing anything inside the core

[Evilbuffy]

Yeah, I'm sorry for the trouble I may have caused by announcing false information. It would be nice though, if this thread could be used for explaining closer what Lua and the engine does.

- Buffy

[CoolManBob]

~This post is reserved for full explaining of how Lua works and how the engine works and what not; i just dont have time to explain it in extreme detail atm so i will edit this post later so please dont delete it thanks ~

[Abstraction]

Nice guide, +Rep.