# RubyLuaBridge - a seamless bridge between Ruby and Lua¶ ↑

RubyLuaBridge lets you access Lua from Ruby. Eventually, support for accessing Ruby from Lua will be added. This documentation assumes basic knowledge of Ruby and Lua.

Relevant web pages:

- BitBucket

## Installation¶ ↑

RubyLuaBridge is a C extension that uses the actual Lua C library. It currently targets Lua 5.1 and Ruby 1.9/2.0. You must run:

    % ruby extconf.rb --with-lua-include=/path/to/lua/include --with-lualib=lualibname
    % make
    % sudo make install

There are extconf helpers for various platforms. Run these instead of the 'ruby extconf.rb'. Included are:

- build/extconf_osx.sh

- build/extconf_ubuntu.sh

## Basic Usage¶ ↑

Read about using Lua in Ruby.

NOT IMPLEMENTED YET, SUGGESTIONS ARE WELCOME. Read about using Ruby in Lua.

## Design Philosophy¶ ↑

- simplest marshalling possible

- simplest API possible

- do more complicated things in Lua itself, rather than exposing them! For example, the coroutine library is not explicitly exposed because it can be handled all through eval and indexing: `l.coroutine.create(f)`

## Ruby to Lua Type Mapping¶ ↑

Ruby

  Lua

nil

  nil

None

  nil

True

  true

False

  false

Fixnum

  number

Bignum

  number

Float

  number

String

  string

Symbol

  string

Hash

  new Lua::Table clone

Array

  new Lua::Table clone

everything else

  lightuserdata

## Lua to Ruby Type Mapping¶ ↑

Lua

  Ruby

none

  nil

nil

  nil

true

  True

false

  False

number

  Float

string

  String

table

  Lua::Table

lightuserdata

  Lua::RefObject

function

  Lua::RefObject

userdata

  Lua::RefObject

thread

  Lua::RefObject

## TODO¶ ↑

- package as gem

- stack trace in error callback

- how to get some external lua_State there?

- how to deal with .clone and .dup?

- accessing Ruby from Lua

## Credits¶ ↑

The following persons have contributed to RubyLuaBridge:

- Evan Wies (evan a neomantra d net)

- Roberto C. Sanchez (roberto at connexer d com)

RubyLuaBridge is inspired by, but not derived from:

- Lunatic Python [labix.org/lunatic-python]

- ruby-lua [raa.ruby-lang.org/project/ruby-lua]

## License¶ ↑

Licensed under the BSD License. It is free software, and may be redistributed under the terms specified in the accompanying LICENSE file, as follows:

Copyright © 2007, Evan Wies. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2014, Roberto C. Sanchez. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

- Neither the name of the neomantra nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY Evan Wies “AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL Evan Wies BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

## Support¶ ↑

Download the latest sources from BitBucket

Please use the mailing list and issue tracking features as well.