Documentation

This page is the index of documentation resources for LuaRocks. If you don't find the answers to your questions here, contact us via the mailing list!

Table of Contents Quick start Tutorials Concepts Command-line tools Reference material Support / more resources Presentations

Quick start

If you're just getting started with LuaRocks, these are things you probably want to read first:

• Download
• To install, choose the one appropriate for your platform:
  • Installation instructions for Unix
  • Installation instructions for Windows
• Using LuaRocks

The sections below provide more comprehensive information for creating your own rocks.

Tutorials

• Creating a rock - for Lua developers who want to make their code available through LuaRocks.
• Recommended practices for Makefiles - things Lua module authors can do to their Makefiles to improve portability and ease of packaging.
• Creating a Makefile that plays nice with LuaRocks - like the above, but in tutorial form.
• Creating LuaRocks with GNU autotools - some pointers to automating the creation of LuaRocks for your GNU autotools-based projects

Concepts

These pages explain some concepts about LuaRocks:

• Types of rocks - What are rocks: source rocks, binary rocks...
• Rocks repositories - rocks servers and rocks trees are rocks repositories.
• Dependencies - How LuaRocks understands dependencies.
  • Platform-agnostic external dependencies - How to specify dependencies on non-Lua libraries in a portable manner.
  • Paths and external dependencies - Configuring path for Lua and other C modules needed by rocks.
• Using LuaRocks - How to use LuaRocks once it is installed and configured.
• Namespaces - How LuaRocks understand namespaces (as in `luarocks install account/rock`)

Command-line tools

• luarocks - The LuaRocks command-line interface.
• luarocks-admin - The repository management tool.

Reference material

• File formats - Reference on the various files used by LuaRocks.
  • Rockspec format - Rockspecs are the files which contain rules explaining how rocks are built and installed as well as their dependencies and other metadata.
    • Platform overrides - How to add platform-specific parts in rockspecs.
  • Config file format - The specification of the LuaRocks configuration file format, as it takes shape.
  • Manifest file format - The index file that describes a LuaRocks servers and trees.
  • Rock file format - Reference to the .rock file format: the installable packages produced from rockspecs.
• File locations - The various locations of files installed and used by LuaRocks.
• LuaRocks through a proxy - Configuring HTTP/FTP proxies for use with LuaRocks.
• Development - Documentation related to the development of LuaRocks itself.

Support / more resources

• On LuaRocks:
  • LuaRocks mailing list - for all things LuaRocks!
• On Lua:
  • Lua mailing list - for questions about the Lua language itself or specific Lua modules (most module authors hang out there!)
  • Lua documentation - documentation on the Lua language, including the reference manual
• On LuaJIT:
  • LuaJIT mailing list - for LuaJIT-specific discussion

Presentations

• LuaRocks: fostering an ecosystem for Lua modules, presented by Hisham Muhammad at FOSDEM 2015, Brussels, Belgium
• What's new in LuaRocks, presented by Hisham Muhammad at the Lua Workshop 2014, Moscow, Russia
• LuaRocks - past, present and future, presented by Hisham Muhammad at the Lua Workshop 2013, Toulouse, France
• LuaRocks 2.0, presented by Hisham Muhammad at the Lua Workshop 2009, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• LuaRocks: o sistema de pacotes de extensão para a linguagem Lua, presented by Hisham Muhammad at FISL 9.0 - IX International Forum on Free Software, Porto Alegre, Brazil