string.dump

Converts a function into binary

Prototype

s = string.dump (f)

Description

Converts a function f into binary representation, which can be subsequently processed by loadstring to retrieve the function. The function must be a Lua function without upvalues.


function f () print "hello, world" end
s = string.dump (f)
assert (loadstring (s)) () --> hello, world

Note: this does not currently work if you are using the LuaJIT DLL instead of the one that ships with the normal MUSHclient download. One way of testing for the presence of LuaJIT is to run this:


print (jit.version) --> LuaJIT 2.0.0-beta7

If LuaJIT is not installed you would see something like:


Error: attempt to index global 'jit' (a nil value)

Further note: Using string.dump is not recommended. Apart from the issues with LuaJIT it may not be portable across Lua releases or different operating system platforms.

Lua functions

string.byte - Converts a character into its ASCII (decimal) equivalent
string.char - Converts ASCII codes into their equivalent characters
string.find - Searches a string for a pattern
string.format - Formats a string
string.gfind - Iterate over a string (obsolete in Lua 5.1)
string.gmatch - Iterate over a string
string.gsub - Substitute strings inside another string
string.len - Return the length of a string
string.lower - Converts a string to lower-case
string.match - Searches a string for a pattern
string.rep - Returns repeated copies of a string
string.reverse - Reverses the order of characters in a string
string.sub - Returns a substring of a string
string.upper - Converts a string to upper-case

Topics

Lua LPEG library
Lua PCRE regular expression functions
Lua base functions
Lua bc (big number) functions
Lua bit manipulation functions
Lua coroutine functions
Lua debug functions
Lua io functions
Lua math functions
Lua os functions
Lua package functions
Lua script extensions
Lua string functions
Lua syntax
Lua table functions
Lua utilities
Regular Expressions
Scripting callbacks - plugins
Scripting