Re: loading shared C library in Lua 5.1(beta)

[Mike Pall <mikelu-0512@...>]

Hi,

David Burgess wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Alex Queiroz <asandroq@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 06/12/05, Kim Sebastian Herzig <kim@st.cs.uni-sb.de> wrote:
> > > --------------8<-----------------------
> > > lua: error loading module 'clib' ('loadlib' not supported)
> > > -------------->8-----------------------
> >
> >      Are you sure your Lua interpreter has dynamic loading compiled in?
>
> He is right check the #defines in luaconf.h,
> this message comes when loadlib is not defined at compile time.

This is the third or fourth time this has come up on the list.

My prediction that the 'default' target would lead to many people
miscompiling Lua 5.1 beta has come true. I strongly suggest that
the default target (i.e. what comes up when you type 'make' at
the top-level) outputs a list with the proper targets and short
descriptions ('make linux', 'make posix' and so on) and _not_
compile anything (or at least print a BIG warning at the start
and the end).

The number of people who really want a 'generic' build is very low.
IMHO it's very reasonable to ask them to type 'make generic'. Most
novices compiling Lua want a full-featured build and will fall
into the 'generic' build trap. I suggest this be changed in the
final Lua 5.1 release.

BTW#1: Yes, there's the documentation. But hardly anoyne reads
the INSTALL file because most projects using autoconf have a
dummy file of this name (which is pretty useless). So most
developers have grown accustomed to ignore this file.

BTW#2: The message "'loadlib' not supported" is not very helpful.
Maybe something like "dynamic loading of C modules not compiled in"
would get the message across.

Bye,
     Mike