Re: Extending Lua for multiple light userdata types

[Tony <luatony@...>]

On 11/14/2012 6:05 AM, Roberto Ierusalimschy wrote:
> One of the main reasons that Lua uses double is to support full 32 
> bits. With a natural 32-bit integer, you could compile Lua with single 
> floats and then really reduce memory usage. But the introduction of 
> integers also solve a big reverse problem. Frequently, restricted 
> systems compile Lua with longs as its number type. And frequently, 
> there is the problem of how to manipulate floating point numbers on 
> those systems. Lua with 32-bit integers and single floats would use 
> much less memory, offering full 32 bits when needed, the speed of 
> integers for hardware without FP support, and floating point number 
> when necessary. -- Roberto

This would be especially useful for embedded use, since there are many 
recent 32-bit MCUs with hardware single precision floating point (but 
not double precision), and plenty of memory to run eLua or other minimal 
Lua systems.

Tony