Re: Finding and loading Lua files

[Ivan Kolev <ikolev@...>]

Since loadlib is already there, I don't think it would hurt a lot if
there was a requirelib function which would do for loadlib the same that
require does for loadfile (i.e. use LUA_PATH to search for the module).
At least for the symmetry. Or maybe even have require do all the work.
Here's the function I'm using now:

public.loadModule = function( module, importFunc, forceReload )
    if _LOADED[module] then
        if not forceReload then
            return _LOADED[module]
        else
            _LOADED[module] = nil
        end
    end

    if not importFunc then  -- try a .lua module first
        local res, mod = pcall( require, module )
        if res then return mod end
        -- a .lua module was not found, try a DLL with luaLM_import
        importFunc = "luaLM_import"
    end

    local path = LUA_PATH or os.getenv "LUA_PATH"
    for m in string.gfind( path, "[^;]+" ) do
        m = string.gsub( m, "%?", module )  -- replace ? with module
        m = loadlib( m, importFunc )
        if m then
            m = m()
            _LOADED[module] = m
            return m
        end
    end
    return nil
end


Nothing OS-dependent here (except loadlib, which is already in the Lua
core). Now all I have to do is set the environment variable LUA_PATH to

?;?.lua;\path\to\LuaTools\?.lua;\path\to\LuaTools\?.dll

and then in the beginning of aTool\aTool.lua:

local utils = require "utils"
local subModule = utils.loadModule( "aTool/subModule" )

This would load both a Lua module from aTool\subModule.lua, or a DLL
module from aTool\subModule.dll

Ivan


Jamie Webb wrote:

> On Friday 23 April 2004 11:28, Ivan Kolev wrote:
>
> > Something definitely must be added to Lua or the auxiliary libraries to
> > ease module finding and loading...
>
>
> That sort of stuff is rather OS and application dependent. The core Lua 
> distribution is intended to be as agnostic as possible. The sort of thing 
> you're looking for is implemented by standalone distributions such as 
> LuaCheia.
>
> -- Jamie Webb