Lua is a lightweight multi-paradigm programming language designed as a scripting language with “extensible semantics” as a primary goal. Lua is cross-platform since it is written in ISO C. Lua has a relatively simple C API, thus “Lua is especially useful for providing end users with an easy way to program the behavior of a software product without getting too far into its innards. Lua was created in 1993 by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, and Waldemar Celes, members of the Computer Graphics Technology Group (Tecgraf) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. It is possible to write extension modules using the Lua API. Extension modules are shared objects which can be used to extend the functionality of the interpreter by providing native facilities to Lua scripts. From the Lua side, such a module appears as a namespace table holding its functions and variables. Lua scripts may load extension modules using require, just like modules written in Lua itself.
A growing collection of modules known as rocks are available through a package management system called LuaRocks, in the spirit of CPAN, RubyGems and Python Eggs. Other sources include LuaForge and the Lua Add-ons directory of lua-users.org . There are several packages for creating graphical user interfaces, Perl/POSIX regular expressions, encryption, file compression, and many others. Prewritten Lua bindings exist for most popular programming languages, including other scripting languages. For C++, there are a number of template-based approaches and some automatic binding generators.
Source code written in a programming language known as Lua and compiled using an ANSI C compiler. These files can be used to customize certain applications such as World of Warcraft and Dawn of War video games. Angry Birds also uses a .lua extension for levels that are compiled in Lua, but not saved in plain text.

Lua is a lightweight multi-paradigm programming language designed as a scripting language with “extensible semantics” as a primary goal. Lua is cross-platform since it is written in ISO C. Lua has a relatively simple C API, thus “Lua is especially useful for providing end users with an easy way to program the behavior of a software product without getting too far into its innards. Lua was created in 1993 by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, and Waldemar Celes, members of the Computer Graphics Technology Group (Tecgraf) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. It is possible to write extension modules using the Lua API. Extension modules are shared objects which can be used to extend the functionality of the interpreter by providing native facilities to Lua scripts. From the Lua side, such a module appears as a namespace table holding its functions and variables. Lua scripts may load extension modules using require, just like modules written in Lua itself.
A growing collection of modules known as rocks are available through a package management system called LuaRocks, in the spirit of CPAN, RubyGems and Python Eggs. Other sources include LuaForge and the Lua Add-ons directory of lua-users.org . There are several packages for creating graphical user interfaces, Perl/POSIX regular expressions, encryption, file compression, and many others. Prewritten Lua bindings exist for most popular programming languages, including other scripting languages. For C++, there are a number of template-based approaches and some automatic binding generators.
Source code written in a programming language known as Lua and compiled using an ANSI C compiler. These files can be used to customize certain applications such as World of Warcraft and Dawn of War video games. Angry Birds also uses a .lua extension for levels that are compiled in Lua, but not saved in plain text.