LuaSocket: Network support for the Lua language

What is LuaSocket?

LuaSocket is a Lua extension library that is composed by two parts: a C core that provides support for the TCP and UDP transport layers, and a set of Lua modules that add support for functionality commonly needed by applications that deal with the Internet.

The core support has been implemented so that it is both efficient and simple to use. It is available to any Lua application once it has been properly initialized by the interpreter in use. The code has been tested and runs well on several Windows and UNIX platforms.

Among the support modules, the most commonly used implement the SMTP (sending e-mails), HTTP (WWW access) and FTP (uploading and downloading files) client protocols. These provide a very natural and generic interface to the functionality defined by each protocol. In addition, you will find that the MIME (common encodings), URL (anything you could possible want to do with one) and LTN12 (filters, sinks, sources and pumps) modules can be very handy.

The library is available under the same terms and conditions 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.

Download

LuaSocket version 3.0-rc1 is now available for download! It is compatible with Lua 5.1 and 5.2, and has been tested on Windows XP, Linux, and Mac OS X. Chances are it works well on most UNIX distributions and Windows flavors.

The library can be downloaded in source code from the LuaSocket project page on GitHub. Besides the full C and Lua source code for the library, the distribution contains several examples, this user's manual and basic test procedures.

Take a look at the installation section of the manual to find out how to properly install the library.

Special thanks

This marks the first release of LuaSocket that wholeheartedly embraces the open-source development philosophy. After a long hiatus, Matthew Wild finally convinced me it was time for a release including IPv6 and Lua 5.2 support. It was more work than we anticipated. Special thanks to Sam Roberts, Florian Zeitz, and Paul Aurich, Liam Devine, Alexey Melnichuk, and everybody else that has helped bring this library back to life.

What's New

Main changes for LuaSocket 3.0-rc1 are IPv6 support and Lua 5.2 compatibility.

Added: Compatible with Lua 5.2
- Note that unless you define LUA_COMPAT_MODULE, package tables will not be exported as globals!
Added: IPv6 support;
- Socket.connect and socket.bind support IPv6 addresses;
- Getpeername and getsockname support IPv6 addresses, and return the socket family as a third value;
- URL module updated to support IPv6 host names;
- New socket.tcp6 and socket.udp6 functions;
- New socket.dns.getaddrinfo and socket.dns.getnameinfo functions;
Added: getoption method;
Fixed: url.unescape was returning additional values;
Fixed: mime.qp, mime.unqp, mime.b64, and mime.unb64 could mistaking their own stack slots for functions arguments;
Fixed: Receiving zero-length datagram is now possible;
Improved: Hidden all internal library symbols;
Improved: Better error messages;
Improved: Better documentation of socket options.

Old Versions

All previous versions of the LuaSocket library can be downloaded here. Although these versions are no longer supported, they are still available for those that have compatibility issues.