Re: cannot get luac.exe to work.

[Olexa Bilaniuk <obilaniu@...>]

Hello Ron,

The mode for reading isn't "*all" but "*a", that's the most obvious explanation.

However I will note in respect of

    luac.exe -o /Plugins/file.lua -l /Plugins/QSRC/file.lua

that you are outputting (-o) to a file called something.lua but it's
not really a ".lua" source file - it's bytecode.

You know, it might be easier, for what you're trying to accomplish, to do

    local function compile(filename)
      -- Obtain bytecode without listing
      local bytecode = string.dump(loadfile(filename))

      -- Obtain listing without bytecode
      local phandle = io.popen('luac -p -l "'..filename..'"', 'r'):read('*a')
      collectgarbage("collect") -- Just in case handles not insta-collected

      return bytecode, listing
    end

which requires no privileges on no executables and doesn't output to
the filesystem but to strings in the Lua program. Then you can solve
separately the problem of writing binary strings to the right files.



Olexa Bilaniuk




On Fri, Sep 22, 2023 at 1:27 PM Ron Unknown <qgenesist@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello Olexa,
>
> this works perfectly to get the 'assembler' output. Thanks.
>  luac.exe -p -l file.lua
>
> **under certain circumstances I also want a binary executable file.
>
> this is the function to create the binary file:
>
> local function crt_bin(cmdstr)
>
>   hdl_cmd = io.popen(cmdstr, 'r')
>   hdl_cmd:flush()
>   rtxdta, _err = hdl_cmd:read('*all')
>   hdl_cmd:close()
>   hdl_cmd = nil
>
>   if _err then onerr(_err) end
> end
>
> this works perfectly and does what I want from the command line:
>  luac.exe -o /Plugins/file.lua -l /Plugins/QSRC/file.lua
>
> however, when I run it through the function io.popen I get: directory not found in rtxdta and the binary is not produced.
> ok, I will do it just like the one that works
>  luac.exe -l /Plugins/QSRC/file.lua
> _err is nil, nothing returned in rtxdta, not in luac.out
> ok, try this one
>  luac.exe - -l /Plugins/QSRC/file.lua
> _err is nil, nothing returned in rtxdta,not in luac.out
> try them with a mode of 'rb'
> same result.
>
> what do I have to do to accomplish this?  thank you.
> ________________________________
> From: Olexa Bilaniuk <obilaniu@gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2023 21:42
> To: Lua mailing list <lua-l@lists.lua.org>
> Subject: Re: cannot get luac.exe to work.
>
> Hello Ron,
>
> I'm not an expert in Windows, but if this can help a bit:
>
> 1. I notice your paths have spaces inside them, which explains why you
> quote things. But you have to be careful when you use functions like
> io.popen() that take a single string; That Lua function hands its
> string straight down to the C function _popen() on Windows, and then
> that function uses whatever rules it uses to parse the string back
> into an array of arguments.
>
> 2. Some of your files have exclamation marks as well (!!) On a POSIX
> shell, not even a double-quote shields an exclamation mark enough, it
> may be necessary to use single quotes. On Windows I don't know what it
> does.
>
> 3. I'll simplify from now on the notation:
>
>         luac.exe -l file.lua > file.irp
>
>     This works in the shell because it uses a shell redirect. At least
> on Linux, luac *never* sees the ">" as an argument, and all it sees is
> ["luac.exe", "-l", "file.lua"]. It writes the compiled code to the
> default output filename, called "luac.out", and prints to standard
> output the listing, but standard output gets redirected to "file.irp".
>
>     I am not sure if the C function _popen(), which io.popen() is
> based on Windows, interprets its command string through a shell. If it
> *does*, you have to be more careful about quoting, but redirections
> work; whereas if it *does not*, then it will not understand the
> redirect.
>
> 4. You say you use io.popen() with the "w" mode. That's unfortunate,
> because you don't need to give luac any standard input and it doesn't
> take any, but you *do* need to read the standard output to get the
> listing. I recommend the "r" mode.
>
> 5. The commands
>
>         luac.exe -l file.lua > file.irp
>         luac.exe -l file.lua -o file.irp
>
>     are not equivalent. The former compiles "file.lua" to bytecode in
> "luac.out" and the listing to "file.irp". The latter does not even run
> because after luac sees the first thing it interprets as a filename
> ("file.lua"), it assumes everything that follows is a Lua filename to
> be compiled as well. "-o" is not a filename.
>
> 6. A slight improvement is
>
>         luac.exe -o file.irp -l file.lua
>
>     This will actually run, and compile "file.lua" to bytecode in
> "file.irp", overriding the default output filename, and prints to
> standard output the listing. But that's not what you wanted; as I
> gather it, you want the listing in "file.irp". Unfortunately there is
> no way for you to indicate a file to write the listing to.
>
> 7. Most appropriate for you is, I believe,
>
>         luac.exe -p -l file.lua
>
>     This uses the "parse only" flag of Luac, and spits out the listing
> to standard output. From there, a redirection will take the listing to
> wherever you want to have it in the shell, or else io.popen("luac.exe
> -p -l file.lua", "r") with the "r" mode will let you capture the
> listing from luac's standard output with a :read("*a") . Most
> importantly, luac will not create an output file, "luac.out" or
> otherwise.
>
> I hope this will be useful to you.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Olexa Bilaniuk
>
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 20, 2023 at 7:47 PM Ron Unknown <qgenesist@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I am on windows 11, and use a program called Family Historian https://www.family-historian.co.uk/
> >
> > Family Historian uses Lua for plugins they will only use from their Plugins folder, not any subfolders.
> > Family Historian  version 6.2.7 uses Lua version 5.1 (I do not know the variant beyond that)
> > Family Historian  version 7.0.x uses Lua version 5.3 (I do not know the variant beyond that)
> >
> > I have downloaded the 5.1.5 binaries  in both 32 and 64 bit (there is no difference in the outcome)
> > I :gsub('\\', '/') since windows has understood '/' since windows 98 and the '\\' repeats throughout are tiresome.
> >
> > from a non-elevated command prompt:
> > the very first issue I ran into was luac.out access denied, so in Windows/system32 I have an luac.out with full access for all and no longer receive that message.
> >
> >  "C:/Program Files (x86)/LUAC/5.1/luac5.1.exe" -l "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/!!XPcall.fh_lua" > "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/IRP/5.1/!!XPcall.irp"
> > this works whether the outfile exists or not on the command line.
> >
> > so, I am ready to run it through my program:
> >  "C:/Program Files (x86)/LUAC/5.1/luac5.1.exe" -l "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/!!XPcall.fh_lua" > "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/IRP/5.1/!!XPcall.irp"
> > using io.popen(... , 'w')
> > result:  No such file or directory
> >
> > I posit that luac will not understand the redirection pipe:
> >  "C:/Program Files (x86)/LUAC/5.1/luac5.1.exe" -l  "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/!!XPcall.fh_lua" -o "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/IRP/5.1/!!XPcall.irp"
> > result:  No such file or directory
> >
> > ok, create the file before you output the listing:
> > result:  No such file or directory
> >
> > Yes there is, I just created it.
> >
> > take it back out to the non-elevated command prompt.
> > cannot open -o: No such file or directory
> >
> > aha, there is some type of error I cannot understand in my command strings when run thru io.popen (or os.execute or laucom) ,  or on the command line,  and the error are from luac.exe
> >
> > QUESTIONS:
> > 1) so what does the command string have to look like?
> >  "C:/Program Files (x86)/LUAC/5.1/luac5.1.exe" -l  "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/!!XPcall.fh_lua" -o "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/IRP/5.1/!!XPcall.irp"
> >
> > additonally, under some circumstances I want to create a binary object.
> > "C:/Program Files (x86)/LUAC/5.1/luac5.1.exe" -t -s  "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/QSRC/QSYS.lua" -o "C:/ProgramData/Calico Pie/Family Historian/Plugins/QSYS.lua"  I understand that I may not use -t on 5.1 compiles.
> >
> > result:  No such file or directory
> > 2, 3) so what does that command string have to look like, and do I have to 'wb' for this?
> >
> > 4_) do I need to create empty supplied outfiles, or does luac create them (or overwrite them if they exist)?
> >
> > I can supply the lua code (it uses several requires that I would have to supply and it is geared only to Family Historian paths, etc) but I do not feel the errors are in the general code, just the assembling of the command string)
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Ronald Melby
> >