<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>LuaSocket: Network support for the Lua language </title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="reference.css" type="text/css"> </head> <body> <!-- header +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --> <div class=header> <hr> <center> <table summary="LuaSocket logo"> <tr><td align=center><a href="http://www.lua.org"> <img border=0 alt="LuaSocket" src="luasocket.png"> </a></td></tr> <tr><td align=center valign=top>Network support for the Lua language </td></tr> </table> <p class=bar> <a href="home.html">home</a> · <a href="home.html#download">download</a> · <a href="introduction.html">introduction</a> · <a href="reference.html">reference</a> </p> </center> <hr> </div> <!-- whatis +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --> <h2 id=whatis>What is LuaSocket?</h2> <p> LuaSocket is a <a href="http://www.lua.org">Lua</a> extension library that is composed by two parts: a C layer that provides support for the TCP and UDP transport layers, and a set of Lua modules that add support for the SMTP (sending e-mails), HTTP (WWW access) and FTP (uploading and downloading files) protocols. </p> <p> Network support has been implemented so that it is both efficient and simple to use. LuaSocket can be used by any Lua application once it has been properly linked with and initialized by the interpreter running the Lua application. The code has been tested and runs well on several Windows and Unix platforms. </p> <p> The library is available under the same <a href="http://www.lua.org/copyright.html"> terms and conditions</a> as the Lua language, the MIT license. The idea is that if you can use Lua in a project, you should also be able to use LuaSocket. </p> <p> Copyright © 1999-2003 Tecgraf/PUC-Rio. All rights reserved. <br> Author: <A href="http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~diego">Diego Nehab</a> </p> <!-- download +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --> <h2 id=down>Download</h2> <p> LuaSocket version 2.0 alpha is now available for download! It is compatible with Lua 5.0 and has been tested on Windows XP, Linux, and Mac OS X. </p> <p> The library can be downloaded in source code from the following links: </p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="luasocket-2.0-alpha.tar.gz">luasocket-2.0-alpha.tar.gz</a> <br> <a href="luasocket-2.0-alpha.zip">luasocket-2.0-alpha.zip</a> </p> </blockquote> <p> Besides the full C and Lua source code for the library, the distribution contains several examples, this user's manual and the test procedures. </p> <p> I am also providing a Windows binary for those that want to give LuaSocket a quick try: </p> <blockquote> <p> <a href="luasocket-2.0.exe">luasocket-2.0.exe</a> </p> </blockquote> <p> This binary has been compiled with the <tt>LUASOCKET_DEBUG</tt> option, and should be able to run the automatic test procedures. </p> <!-- whatsnew +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --> <h2 id=new>What's New</h2> <p> Most of the changes for 2.0 happened in the C layer, which has been almost completely rewritten. The code has been ported to Lua 5.0 and greatly improved. There have also been some API changes that made the interface simpler and more consistent. Here are some of the changes that made it into version 2.0: </p> <ul> <li> Major C code rewrite. Code is modular and extensible. Hopefully, next versions will include code for local domain sockets, file descriptors, pipes (on Unix) and named pipes (on windows) as a bonus; <li> Following the Lua 5.0 trend, all functions provided by the library are in the namespace <tt>socket</tt>. Functions such as send/receive/timeout/close etc do not exist anymore as stand-alone functions. They are now only available as methods of the appropriate objects; <li> All functions return a non-nil value as first return value if successful. All functions return whatever could be retrieved followed by error message in case of error. The best way to check for errors is to check for the presence of an error message; <li> UDP connected sockets can break association with peer by calling <tt>setpeername</tt> with address '<tt>*</tt>'; <li> TCP has been changed to become more uniform. First create an object, then connect or bind if needed, and finally use I/O functions. The <tt>socket.connect</tt> and <tt>socket.bind</tt> functions are still provided for simplicity, but they just call <tt>socket.tcp</tt> followed by the <tt>connect</tt> or <tt>bind</tt> methods; <li> Better error messages and parameter checking; <li> <tt>socket.sleep</tt> and <tt>socket.time</tt> are now part of the library and are supported. They used to be available only when LUASOCKET_DEBUG was defined, but it turns out they might be useful for applications; <li> Socket options interface has been improved and TCP objects also support socket options. </ul> <!-- incompatible +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --> <h3 id=incompatible>Incompatibilities with previous versions</h3> <ul> <li> The introduction of namespaces affects all programs that use LuaSocket, specially code that relies on global functions. These are no longer available. Note that even the support modules (<tt>http</tt>, <tt>smtp</tt> etc) have been moved to the namespace (i.e. <tt>socket.http</tt>, <tt>socket.smtp</tt> etc); <li> WARNING: The new <tt>send</tt>, <tt>sendto</tt>, <tt>setpeername</tt> and <tt>setsockname</tt>, <tt>ftp.put</tt>, <tt>ftp.put_cb</tt> return convention WILL break old code; <li> Interface to options has changed; <li> <tt>socket.select</tt> refuses tables that have anything that is not an object from the group <tt>select{able}</tt>. This includes even the '<tt>n</tt>' field. Silently ignoring objects was a source of bugs for Lua programs. </ul> <!-- old ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --> <h2 id=old>Old Versions</h2> <p> All previous versions of the LuaSocket library can be downloaded <a href="http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/luasocket/old">here</a>. Although these versions are no longer supported, they are still available for those that have compatibility issues. </p> <!-- footer +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ --> <div class=footer> <hr> <center> <p class=bar> <a href="home.html#down">download</a> · <a href="introduction.html">introduction</a> · <a href="reference.html">reference</a> </p> <p> <small> Last modified by Diego Nehab on <br> Sun Aug 10 01:36:26 PDT 2003 </small> </p> </center> </div> </body> </html>