Re: Lua web stuff

[Petite Abeille <petite.abeille@...>]

Hi,

On Jan 25, 2008, at 6:01 AM, Eric Tetz wrote:

> I need to write a web interface to a database, and was considering Lua
> ('cause it's fun ^_^).  A  quick Google turns up Kepler, which  
> judging by
> the website alone seems to be fairly mature.

The web part of Kepler is very much in flux at the moment...

Kepler's LuaSQL[1] will help with database connectivity though:

Here is an example using DB.lua[2], a wrapper around LuaSQL:

local DB = require( 'DB' )
local aDB = DB( 'mysql://localhost/test' )

for aContact in aDB( 'select * from contact where email like %s order  
by 1', 'maria%' ) do
    print( aContact.name, aContact.email )
end


> Are there any other mature ones? How robust/complete/usable are  
> these compared to something like PHP?

Never used PHP, so cannot comment on that, but... there are quiet a  
few Web libraries around.

For example, HTTP.lua [3] is very similar in spirit to web.py[4].

Canonical 'HelloWorld.lua' example:

--8<--
local HTTP = require( 'HTTP' )

HTTP[ '/hello(%a*)' ] = function( aName ) return 'Hello ' .. ( aName  
or 'world' ) end

HTTP()
-->8--


Run 'HelloWorld.lua' under tcpserver [5] or such:

% tcpserver 0 1080 lua HelloWorld.lua


% telnet localhost 1080
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /hello HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:25:26 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 11
Connection: close

Hello world


That said... Lua is very much a 'bring your own' kind of place... in  
other words... not many batteries are included out-of-the-box...  
usually your best bet is to assemble the different parts you need by  
yourself and get going...

"Lua gives you the power; you build the mechanisms."
-- Roberto Ierusalimschy, Programming in Lua, December 2003
http://www.lua.org/pil/12.1.2.html

Cheers,

PA.

[1] http://www.keplerproject.org/luasql/
[2] http://dev.alt.textdrive.com/browser/HTTP/DB.lua
[3] http://dev.alt.textdrive.com/browser/HTTP/HTTP.lua
[4] http://webpy.org/
[5] http://cr.yp.to/ucspi-tcp/tcpserver.html