luasocket/doc/index.html
2004-06-15 23:00:56 +00:00

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<title>LuaSocket: Network support for the Lua language </title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="reference.css" type="text/css">
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<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> &middot;
<a href="home.html#download">download</a> &middot;
<a href="introduction.html">introduction</a> &middot;
<a href="reference.html">reference</a>
</p>
</center>
<hr>
</div>
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<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 and other functionality commonly needed by
applications that deal with the Internet.
</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 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 &copy; 1999-2004 Tecgraf/PUC-Rio. All rights reserved. <br>
Author: <A href="http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~diego">Diego Nehab</a>
</p>
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<h2 id=download>Download</h2>
<p>
LuaSocket version 2.0 beta 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-beta.tar.gz">luasocket-2.0-beta.tar.gz</a> <br>
<a href="luasocket-2.0-beta.zip">luasocket-2.0-beta.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>
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<h2 id=thanks>Special thanks</h2>
<p>
Throughout LuaSocket's history, many people gave sugestions that helped
improve it. For that, I thank the Lua comunity.
Special thanks go to
David Burgess, who has pushed 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.
</p>
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<h2 id=new>What's New</h2>
<p>
Everything is new! Many 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 namespaces. These should be obtained with calls to the
<tt>require</tt> function. 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 <b><tt>nil</tt></b> followed by error message
in case of error;
<li> Better error messages and parameter checking;
<li> Should be interrupt safe;
<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/listen</tt> methods;
<li> Greatly reduced the number of times select is called during data
transfers, by calling only on failure;
<li> TCP can set timeout value before connecting and also bind to local
address before connecting;
<li> <tt>socket.select</tt> returns associative sets and checks if
sockets had buffered data;
<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> <tt>socket.try</tt> and <tt>socket.protect</tt> provide a simple
interface to exceptions that proved very in the implementation of
high-level modules;
<li> Socket options interface has been improved. TCP objects also
support socket options and many other options were added.
</ul>
<p>
Lots of changes in the Lua modules, too. The new MIME and LTN12 modules
make all other modules much more powerful. The main new functionality is
the support for multipart messages in the SMTP module.
</p>
<ul>
<li>
</ul>
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<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) are independent now and should be "<tt>require</tt>ed";
<li> FTP, SMTP and HTTP are completely new; I am sure you will
agree the new stuff is better;
<li> WARNING: The new <tt>send</tt>, <tt><b>receive</b></tt>,
<tt>sendto</tt>, <tt>setpeername</tt> and <tt>setsockname</tt>,
return convention WILL break old code;
<li> Interface to options has changed;
</ul>
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<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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<hr>
<center>
<p class=bar>
<a href="home.html#down">download</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 Aug 10 01:36:26 PDT 2003
</small>
</p>
</center>
</div>
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