luasocket/doc/index.html
Diego Nehab 4e5ad6d5ee Bug in poll.
Debug garbage in compat-5.1.c.
Improvements to the user manual.
2004-11-29 06:55:47 +00:00

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7.7 KiB
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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
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<head>
<meta name="description" content="The LuaSocket Homepage">
<meta name="keywords" content="Lua, LuaSocket, Network, Library, Support, Internet">
<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 width=128 height=128 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> &middot;
<a href="home.html#download">download</a> &middot;
<a href="instalation.html">instalation</a> &middot;
<a href="introduction.html">introduction</a> &middot;
<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 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.
</p>
<p>
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. </p>
<p>
Among the support modules, the most commonly used implement the
<a href=smtp.html>SMTP</a>
(sending e-mails),
<a href=http.html>HTTP</a>
(WWW access) and
<a href=ftp.html>FTP</a>
(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
<a href=mime.html>MIME</a> (common encodings),
<a href=url.html>URL</a>
(anything you could possible want to do with one) and
<a href=ltn12.html>LTN12</a>
(filters, sinks, sources and pumps) modules can be very handy.
</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 &copy; 2004 Diego Nehab. All rights reserved. <br>
Author: <A href="http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~diego">Diego Nehab</a>
</p>
<!-- download +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
<h2 id=download>Download</h2>
<p>
LuaSocket version 2.0 (beta3) is now available for download! It is
compatible with Lua&nbsp;5.0 and has been tested on
Windows&nbsp;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-beta3.tar.gz">luasocket-2.0-beta3.tar.gz</a> <br>
<a href="luasocket-2.0-beta3.zip">luasocket-2.0-beta3.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 basic test procedures.
</p>
<p>
I am also providing PC Win32 binaries for those that want to give
LuaSocket a try (Those on Unix or Mac OS X can just type <tt>make</tt>):
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
<a href="luasocket-2.0-beta3-win32.zip">luasocket-2.0-beta3-win32.zip</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
The quick and dirty way to use these binaries is to unpack everything into a
directory, say <tt>c:\luasocket</tt> (include all Lua files from the
LuaSocket distrbitution in the same directory too!).
Then set <tt>LUA_INIT</tt> to load the <tt>compat-5.1.lua</tt> and set
<tt>LUA_PATH</tt> and <tt>LUA_CPATH</tt> to look for files in the current
directory:
</p>
<pre class=example>
c:\luasocket\&gt; set LUA_INIT=@c:\luasocket\compat-5.1.lua
c:\luasocket\&gt; set LUA_CPATH=?.dll
c:\luasocket\&gt; set LUA_PATH=?.lua
</pre>
<p>
From that directory, you can then run the interpreter and it should find all
files it needs. To download this manual page from the Internet, for example,
do the following:
</p>
<pre class=example>
c:\luasocket\&gt; lua
Lua 5.0.2 Copyright (C) 1994-2004 Tecgraf, PUC-Rio
&gt; http = require"http"
&gt; print(http.request"http://www.tecgraf.puc-rio.br/luasocket/")
--&gt; the source to this webpage gets dumped to terminal
</pre>
<p> When you are done playing, take a look at the
<a href=instalation.html>installation</a> section of the manual to find out
how to properly install the library. </p>
<!-- thanks +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
<h2 id=thanks>Special thanks</h2>
<p>
Throughout LuaSocket's history, many people gave suggestions that helped
improve it. For that, I thank the Lua community.
Special thanks go to
David Burgess, who has helped push the library to a new level of quality and
from whom I have learned a lot of stuff that doesn't show up in RFCs.
Special thanks also to Carlos Cassino, who played a big part in the
extensible design seen in the C core of LuaSocket 2.0. Recently, Mike Pall
has been helping a lot too! Thanks to you all!
</p>
<!-- whatsnew +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -->
<h2 id=new>What's New</h2>
<p>
The big change for the 2.0 (beta3) release was the adoption of the Lua 5.1
package proposal. Naturally, there were a few bug fixes (a beta is a
beta, is a beta).
</p>
<ul>
<li> New compat-5.1 distribution:
<ul>
<li> Instalation uses new directory structure;
<li> Namespace hierarchy is in now back in use (ex. <tt>socket.url</tt>
instead of <tt>url</tt>);
<li> Globals not visible from inside namespaces;
<li> All modules call <tt>require</tt> even for standard libraries;
</ul>
<li> LTN12 avoids coroutines (so you can go wild on the C side);
<li> Kludge on wsocket.c:sock_send for windows timeout issue
moved to buffer.c:sendraw;
<li> <tt>socket.protect </tt>only catches errors thrown by <tt>socket.try</tt>;
<li> Fixed <tt>udp:sendto</tt> to call <tt>sock_sendto</tt> instead of
<tt>sock_send</tt>;
<li> <tt>close</tt> wasn't returning 1!
<li> <tt>socket.gettime</tt> returns time since Unix Epoch 1/1/1970 (UTC);
<li> <tt>socket.sleep</tt> is robust to interrupts;
<li> <tt>socket.select</tt> wasn't calling <tt>tm_markstart</tt>;
<li> <tt>http.PROXY</tt> wasn't working.
</ul>
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<h3 id=incompatible>Incompatibilities with previous versions</h3>
<ul>
<li> Namespaces are hierarchical again. This means that whoever used to
call <tt>require("url")</tt> should update their code to
<tt>require("socket.url")</tt>.
</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>
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<p class=bar>
<a href="home.html#down">download</a> &middot;
<a href="home.html#download">download</a> &middot;
<a href="instalation.html">instalation</a> &middot;
<a href="introduction.html">introduction</a> &middot;
<a href="reference.html">reference</a>
</p>
<p>
<small>
Last modified by Diego Nehab on <br>
Sun Nov 28 03:19:00 EST 2004
</small>
</p>
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