To better understand how the luac compiler works, I found it invaluable to run and step through the compiler using a provided main.lua script (also included in this repository) inside gdb. Thus, I've included a slightly modified version of lua-5.4.7 compiled with the -ggdb flag for debugging, with the default optimizations -O2 disabled, which you can build using make. See: debug_luac.sh
- Online Lua Bytecode Explorer: https://www.luac.nl/
luaccompiles Lua source code to Lua bytecode: https://www.lua.org/source/5.4/luac.c.html- All of the Lua virtual machine opcodes: https://www.lua.org/source/5.4/lopcodes.h.html
- How luac saves precompiled Lua chunks: https://www.lua.org/source/5.4/ldump.c.html
- The Implementation of Lua 5.0: https://www.lua.org/doc/jucs05.pdf
- Garbage Collection in Lua: https://www.lua.org/wshop18/Ierusalimschy.pdf
- Creating a Virtual Machine/Register VM in C: https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Creating_a_Virtual_Machine/Register_VM_in_C
- Register allocation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_allocation
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
(The MIT License) Copyright (c) 2025 Peter Sideris [email protected] Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.