Re: Who is using modified Lua versions, what are they and why?

On 2026-06-27 10:24, 'Sewbacca' via lua-l wrote:
> Lua is small, readable and easily modifiable which are huge perks. However they only come in handy if you are in control of the application itself which is running Lua. If you rely on the default distributed Lua version, you can't just change the parser. Especially if you are writing modules, then you have very little control over the runtime.
> 
> So out of curiosity: Who is using modified Lua versions, what are the modifications and why do you need them?
G'day,

Although no-one seems to be using lglicua, I included a mechanism
for explicitly patching a Lua version install.  The main reason for
this was so that I could add David Sicilia's "continue" patch to
for loops, so that Lua loops can be written in a style closer to
that allowed by C.  (I like continue because I abhor deep nesting,
and "continue" gives me more freedom to handle edge/non-mainstream
value cases without taking emphasis away from the main body.)

When installing Lua, lglicua always builds from source, regardless
of the package capabilities of the GNU/Linux OS.  The user can use
"+feature" to request that a feature patch be applied before make,
and multiple features/patches can be specified (e.g. "+a+b+z").
However, there is no attempt to synchronise diff-style patch files
to cater for differences e.g. in line numbering and/or context
changes; perhaps an "+a+b" patch might be needed alongside "+a"
and "+b" patches (and perhaps deny any use of "+b+a"?).

```
        BASE/install $ ./i lua-install 5.4+continue
        BASE/install $ ./i lua-select 5.4
        BASE/install $ lua -v
                       Lua 5.4.8 +continue Copyright (C) 1994-2025 Lua.org, PUC-Rio

        BASE/install $ ./i lua-install 5.4+continue+another
        BASE/install $ ./i lua-select 5.4
        BASE/install $ lua -v
                       Lua 5.4.8 +continue+another Copyright (C) 1994-2025 Lua.org, PUC-Rio

```

Although I don't know of any users, this is at least one working
experiment in preparing customised versions.

[lglicua is available on SourceForge.]

cheers,
sur-behoffski (Brenton Hoff)
programmer, Grouse Software

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lua-l" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lua-l/083f8e71-7d56-4bbb-bc4c-96e86ba0ef88%40grouse.com.au.