KeraLuaEx

KeraLuaEx is a modified version of KeraLua 1.3.4 with new capabilities and some limitations.

It's not a branch because it does not support the multitude of targets that the original does. The core KeraLua code is cleaned up but structurally and functionally the same.

Components

• KeraLuaEx is the core standalone library. It has no external dependencies.
• Test is the NUnit project; some of the original tests are carried over for regression. It also contains a WinForms project which makes it easier for initial development and debugging because NUnit is a bit clumsy for that.

Significant Changes

Innards

• Uses Lua 5.4.6 x64. Windows only right now.
• .NET6/C# SDK project.
• Turned on nullable.
• Integers fixed at 32 bit.

Functional

• Added a TableEx class to simplify passing data back and forth between C# and Lua. Supports:
  • Homogenous arrays of ints, doubles, or strings.
  • Dictionaries of objects with string keys.
• ToNumberX() and ToIntegerX() are removed and plain ToNumber() and ToInteger() now return nullables.
• Added DoCall() similar to the lua C function docall(). It captures the stack trace on error so the client can process.

Error Handling

• Original lib (Lua.cs) does not throw. New ones (LuaEx, TableEx) do.
  • Option to throw exceptions (default) in class Lua or return LuaStatus codes. Checking is implemented in these functions: Load(), LoadBuffer(), LoadFile(), LoadString(), PCall(), PCallK(), Resume().
  • ToTableEx() always throws exceptions because the errors (usually script syntax) can be deep in the hierarchy. Capture them by handling LogMessage event in your client.
  • Error() is not used internally.
  • Removed most arg checking - it was kind of sparse. Client will have to handle things like NullArgumentException etc.

Cosmetic

• Variables with State changed to L.
• Removed lots of overloaded funcs, using default args instead.
• Removed expression-bodied members because I prefer to reserve => for lambdas only.

Script Structure

Scripts can be structured as "everything is a global" or a modular model (see LuaExTests.cs):

• Global: see ScriptWithGlobal() in conjunction with the script luaex.lua.
• Modular: see ScriptWithModule() in conjunction with the script luaex_mod.lua.

In reality the simple global approach makes more sense for plain old scripts but the option is there to mix and match.

Api Approach

The ApiLib class demonstrates how either approach integrates with the host application (in this case the test suites). It also demonstrates the use of interop code generation using LuaBagOfTricks.