Load module/package from string

[jose.camacho@...]

Hi everyone,

this is a long message, sorry for the
verbosity. We tried different solutions as found in the manual/google,
but none of them worked. Here ge go

We are working with LUA in a distributed
architecture. Modules and scripts should be got over the network as a string
(char sequence) and then, loaded in a Lua environment

For example, module 'defs.lua' and script
'test.lua'
File defs.lua
-- Starts here
module(..., package.seeall)

description = 'Module description'
-- Ends here

File test.lua
-- Starts here
require 'defs'

print (defs.description) 
-- Ends here

The script 'test.lua' should be called
from a C program. For testing, we use the Lua command line interpreter,
with both files saved in different folders. The script is in the same folder
where Lua starts and the module is in a sub-folder called 'libs'. These
are the outputs we got in different tries.

Test 1: call loadfile and dofile
J:\>lua
Lua 5.1.4  Copyright (C) 1994-2008
Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> assert (loadfile ('.\\lib\\defs.lua'))
> dofile ('test.lua')
test.lua:1: module 'defs' not found:
        no field
package.preload['defs']
        no file
'.\defs.lua'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\lua\defs.lua'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\lua\defs\init.lua'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\defs.lua'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\defs\init.lua'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\lua\defs.luac'
        no file
'.\defs.dll'
        no file
'.\defs51.dll'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\defs.dll'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\defs51.dll'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\clibs\defs.dll'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\clibs\defs51.dll'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\loadall.dll'
        no file
'C:\Programme\Lua_5.1\clibs\loadall.dll'
stack traceback:
        [C]: in
function 'require'
        test.lua:1:
in main chunk
        [C]: in
function 'dofile'
        stdin:1:
in main chunk
        [C]: ?
        
Test 2: desesperate use of package.loaded
J:\>lua
Lua 5.1.4  Copyright (C) 1994-2008
Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> assert (loadfile ('lib\\defs.lua'))
> package.loaded['defs'] =loadfile
('lib\\defs.lua')
> dofile ('test.lua')
test.lua:3: attempt to index global
'defs' (a nil value)
stack traceback:
        test.lua:3:
in main chunk
        [C]: in
function 'dofile'
        stdin:1:
in main chunk
        [C]: ?

Test 3: calling the returned loaded
function
J:\>lua
Lua 5.1.4  Copyright (C) 1994-2008
Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> f = assert (loadfile ('lib\\defs.lua'))
> f()
lib\defs.lua:1: bad argument #1 to 'module'
(string expected, got nil)
stack traceback:
        [C]: in
function 'module'
        lib\defs.lua:1:
in function 'f'
        stdin:1:
in main chunk
        [C]: ?

And then, we run out of ideas...

Regards,

José Camacho