Note: Extending Lua with C

1 files changed, 53 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/content/notes/extend-lua-with-custom-c.md b/content/notes/extend-lua-with-custom-c.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ba0a046
--- /dev/null
+++ b/content/notes/extend-lua-with-custom-c.md
@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+---
+title: Extend Lua with custom C functions using Clang
+url: extend-lua-with-custom-c.html
+date: 2023-05-24
+type: notes
+draft: false
+tags: [lua, clang, c]
+---
+
+Here is a boilerplate for extending Lua with custom C functions. This requires
+Clang and Lua 5.1 to be installed. GCC can be used instead of Clang, but the
+Makefile will need to be modified.
+
+- nativefunc.c
+
+  ```c
+  #include <lua.h>
+  #include <lauxlib.h>
+
+  static int l_mult50(lua_State *L) {
+    double number = luaL_checknumber(L, 1);
+    lua_pushnumber(L, number * 50);
+    return 1;
+  }
+
+  int luaopen_nativefunc(lua_State *L) {
+    static const struct luaL_Reg nativeFuncLib[] = {{"mult50", l_mult50}, {NULL, NULL}};
+
+    luaL_register(L, "nativelib", nativeFuncLib);
+    return 1;
+  }
+  ```
+
+- main.lua
+
+  ```lua
+  require "nativefunc"
+  print(nativelib.mult50(50))
+  ```
+
+- Makefile
+
+  ```Makefile
+  CC       = clang
+  CFLAGS   =
+  INCLUDES = `pkg-config lua5.1 --cflags-only-I`
+
+  all:
+    $(CC) -shared -o nativefunc.so -fPIC nativefunc.c $(CFLAGS) $(INCLUDES)
+
+  clean:
+    rm *.so
+  ```