This module provides a basic interface between Lua and Tcl/Tk. The operations of this module allow you to execute arbitrary commands in the Tcl interpreter, set and retrieve variable values in the interpreter, and invoke Lua callbacks from Tcl/Tk. It should thus provide all the machinery required to code fairly sophisticated Tcl/Tk applications in Lua.
This is a fairly straightforward port of the corresponding Pure module, see https://agraef.github.io/pure-docs/pure-tk.html. It implements most of the basic operations of that module in Lua, but lacks some of the more advanced functionality. A brief synopsis of the available functions can be found below. Please also check the examples folder for some sample Lua scripts showing how to utilize this module.
You'll need Lua, of course (Lua 5.2 or later should be fine, 5.4 has been tested), and Tcl/Tk (8.6 has been tested). (A few of the examples may also need additional Tcl modules, such as Gnocl and VTK, please check the Tcl sources for details.)
This version comes with a rockspec which lets you conveniently install the module using luarocks.
To build and install: sudo luarocks install lua-tk
To uninstall: sudo luarocks remove lua-tk
The module can also be installed in the usual way if you don't have luarocks, as follows:
To build and install: make && sudo make install
To uninstall: sudo make uninstall
To load this module: tk = require("tk")
tk.eval(s): Executes the command s (a string) in the Tcl interpreter. An instance of the interpreter will be created if none is currently running.
In the Tcl interpreter, you can call back to Lua using the Tcl lua command which is invoked as lua function args ..., where function is the name of a Lua function (which must be global), and args are the (string) arguments the function is to be invoked with.
tk.quit(): Stop the Tcl interpreter.
tk.main(): Call the Tk main loop which keeps processing events until either tk.quit() is called or the main window of the application is closed.
tk.ready(): Checks whether the Tcl interpreter is still up and running, after processing any pending events in the interpreter. This provides an alternative to tk.main() which enables you to code your own custom main loops in Lua.
tk.set(var, val), tk.unset(var), tk.get(var): Set and get global Tcl variables.
tk.join(xs), tk.split(s): Convert between Lua and Tcl lists.
There are various Tcl add-on packages which can be useful for Lua programmers. In particular, you may want to look at Gnocl, which lets you create nice-looking GTK+ GUIs in Tcl, and VTK, a powerful scientific visualization package which has Tcl bindings. As I find these so useful, and ready-made packages can be hard to find, I've provided some suitable Arch and Debian/Ubuntu packages for your convenience. You can find the former in the Arch User Repositories (Gnocl, VTK), and the latter at the Open Build Service (Gnocl, VTK).