lua meta methods library

set of meta methods, most useful for lua-t lirary

• support require module name with dots: _ = require "t/seo/google.com"
• relative require:

-- for current module use ... (this works only inside a module)
local require = require "meta.require"(...)
local x = require ".submodule"

• recursive autoloader (default loader without init.lua created, nice for hier)
• match and iterate loaded submodules: ex. t.seo["google.com"], for k,v in pairs(t.seo), to iter all available need preload
• module path normalizing (t.net.ip -> t/net/ip), require() works using any format
• searcher injected as #1 module searcher (to package.searchers)
• instance/type meta methods manipulations

meta

• loader: recursive auto loader, but lazy by default
• memoize: memoize front, supports function / closure / mt.__call
• methods + clone: extract __* metamethods, useful for copying .mt (for ~recursive metatables) and code reuse
• computed: like js computed object, effective for data structures fast defining
• mt and mtindex: get/set metatables helpers

more info

• all loaders have same type (mt) and use cache to keep its module name + other params
• the reason is to keep only actual (loaded) submodules in loader object itself (and all available if case of preload)
• users may rely on pairs(loader(...)) working in all lua versions
• iterating loader skips init.lua due to net/init.lua loads as require "net", which differ nesting level from require "net/ip" loading net/ip.lua
• each meta.* function implemented as standalone .lua callable considering same idea for loader iterations + allowing to use standalone calls, if needed
• it is possible to add module functions to loader as metamethods (__call / __tostring / etc), to make some static object

luarocks

luarocks install --server=https://luarocks.org/dev meta

depends

• lua5.1
• paths
• compat53

test depends

• busted