LUA

Lua is a portable interpreted language. It is mainly used in Games, however it is also used by NMAP's Scripting Engine

Special thanks to Trep for his contributions to this article.

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Variables

Variables in Lua are very simple. it is not required to declare the variable's data type, just assign a value.

Var = 1 Var2 = "Im a var!" Var3 = 2 Var4 = Var * Var3

Global Variables vs Local Variables

When Variables in lua are declared, they are globally accessible unless otherwise specified with local.

GlobalVar = 0 local LocalVar = 1337

Functions

Functions in lua are quite easy as well.

function SimpleAddition(x,y,z) local Sum = x + y + z --only accessible from within this context. SumTimesTwo = Sum * 2 -- can be referenced from anywhere in the current file, or wherever file is loaded. return Sum end

Tables

Lua tables are a bit like arrays, except that an array is.. well an array of values. A Table, is an array of Keys, and those Keys have values.

Declaring an empty Table

MyTable = {} --declares an empty table.

Declaring, and populating a Table

Numbers = {"one","Two","Three","Four","Five"}

The above declaration is exact to the one below

Numbers = {} Numbers[1] = "one" Numbers[1] = "Two" Numbers[1] = "Three" Numbers[1] = "Four" Numbers[1] = "Five"

Indexing Tables

Protip: Unlike what you would expect, the index for a table starts at 1, instead of 0.

Numbers = {"one","Two","Three","Four","Five"} print(Numbers[0]) -- prints nil, as index starts at 1. print(Numbers[1]) -- prints "one"

LUA is part of a series on programming.
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