Installing Lua is fun

[cormullion@...]

Please - don't read this boring email unless you really want to.

So, I've decided to try out Lua as a general-purpose scripting language for MacOS X. I've heard it's good. (I've already bought the iLuaBox app for the iPhone, and it looks like fun.)

I started here:

> lua.org

Nice looking website. I clicked on Download, and, under the heading Binaries, read this:

> If you don't have the time or the inclination to compile Lua yourself, get a binary

That's me! I don't want to be dealing with compilers and paths and all that, so I'll click on MacOS:

> See [LuaForge Lua Binaries project] for the most recent versions for MacOS X.
> See also MacOsClassicLua and MacOsxLua.

Although the MacOSXlua section has a couple of broken links and a link to a framework, it does, however, have a link to the Lua Binaries (the line above :). I'll click on that.

I'm now at the binaries at http://luabinaries.sourceforge.net/:

> Installation
> 
> The LuaBinaries files are intended for advanced users and programmers who want to incorporate Lua in their applications or distributions and would like to keep compatibility with LuaBinaries, so they also will be compatible with many other modules available on the Internet.
> 
> If what you want is a full Lua installation, please check other projects such as the Lua for Windows, Lua for Linux and LuaRocks.

Yay, that's me! I want a full Lua installation, cos I'm certainly not an advanced user, so off to LuaRocks - I won't bother the Windows or Linux pages, I'm sure they'd have lots of problems installing Lua. The Luarocks web site looks good, and says: LuaRocks is a pure Lua application with no library dependencies.  I realise later that this was when my suspicions were first aroused, but I give it a try. I end up downloading http://luarocks.org/releases/luarocks-2.0.4.tar.gz which appears to be the latest version. (It's at the bottom of the page, almost)

It unzips. I've now got a folder on  my desktop:

   luarocks-2.0.4:
	configure
	COPYING
	Makefile
	README.md
	rockspec
	src:
		bin:
			luarocks
			luarocks-admin
  ...


I'm not sure what to do now, so I figure that I have to run configure:

> bash configure 
> Looking for Lua... lua not found in $PATH.
> You may want to use the flags --with-lua and/or --lua-suffix. See --help.

Aha. It starts to look like I need a lua before I can install a lua. I had started to suspect that anyway, so let's go back to sourceforge and download that pre-built binary that I hadn't thought I was going to be advanced enough to download:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/luabinaries/files/5.2-work2/Executables/lua5_2_work2_MacOS106_bin.tar.gz/download

I downloaded it to the desktop. (Isn't it great how quick Lua-related downloads are?)

 lua5_1_4_MacOS106_bin:
	bin2c5.1
	lua5.1
	luac5.1

They look like binaries - they have Unix-y icons - so I'll try that luarocks configure command again and tell it to look for Lua there:

> $ bash configure
> Checking Lua includes... lua.h not found (looked in /Users/me/Desktop/lua5_1_4_MacOS106_bin/lua5.1/include/lua.h)
> You may want to use the flag --with-lua-include. See --help.

I'm getting closer, I think. But I obviously need to install a lua.h file first.

I'll go back to the source of all things Lua, lua.org, and see about downloading the source code. Perhaps that will have a file called lua.h file somewhere. I'll click on the 'source code' link at http://www.lua.org/download.html. I download:

> http://www.lua.org/ftp/lua-5.1.4.tar.gz

Now I'll try that bash configure command again:

> bash configure --with-lua=$HOME/Desktop/lua5_1_4_MacOS106_bin/lua5.1 --with-lua-include=/Users/me/Desktop/lua-5.1.4/src/
> Checking Lua includes... lua.h found in /Users/me/Desktop/lua-5.1.4/src//lua.h
> curl found at /usr/bin
> openssl found at /usr/bin
> Configuring for system... Darwin
> Configuring for architecture... i386
> Writing configuration...
> 
> Installation prefix: /usr/local
> LuaRocks configuration directory: /usr/local/etc/luarocks
> Using Lua from: /Users/me/Desktop/lua5_1_4_MacOS106_bin/lua5.1
> 
> Done. You can now run 'make' to build.

Keenly aware that I'm doing all this because I don't want to make or build the source code, I type:

  make

>   ... cool bash stuff
>   ...
>   Done. Type 'make install' to install into /usr/local.

There's more? Yes:

  make install:

>   even more cool bash stuff
>   with added error messages
> mkdir: /usr/local/share/lua: Permission denied

Ah, I know this one. Thought you could outsmart me, did you? You have to remember to type a 'sudo' first:

  sudo make install
   
And it all seems to work OK. At least, there are no errors...

So I've now installed luarocks, which - you'll remember - promised me the full Lua installation. 

And what use is luarocks now? Well, it's not  happy whenever I run it:

	bad interpreter: Not a directory

I know the problem. It can't get to grips with Lua on this machine. And, to be honest, by now neither can I.

End of part 1.

PS: Sorry for this boring email. At least I warned you... :))