Creating standalone Lua executables

Question

Is there an easy way to create standalone .exe files from Lua scripts? Basically this would involve linking the Lua interpreter and the scripts.

I believe it is poss

Answer 1

To make executable from script use bin2c utility such way:

luac script.lua -o script.luac
bin2c script.luac > code.c

Then create in text editor file main.c and compile/link it with your favorite compiler. That's it. (Note - executable also supports command line args)

Example with MSVC:

cl /I "./" /I "$(LUA_DIR)\include" /D "_CRT_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE" /D "_MBCS" /GF /FD /EHsc /MD /Gy /TC /c main.c
ld /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE /RELEASE /ENTRY:"mainCRTStartup" /MACHINE:X86 /MANIFEST $(LUA_DIR)\lib\lua5.1.lib main.obj /out:script.exe
mt -manifest $script.manifest -outputresource:script.exe;1

Use /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS for GUI executable. All that isn't easy just for the 1st time, you can create batch file to automate the process once you successfuly try it.

main.c:

#include 
#include 
#include "lua.h"
#include "lauxlib.h"
#include "lualib.h"

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
  int i;
  lua_State *L = luaL_newstate();
  luaL_openlibs(L);
  lua_newtable(L);
  for (i = 0; i < argc; i++) {
    lua_pushnumber(L, i);
    lua_pushstring(L, argv[i]);
    lua_rawset(L, -3);
  }
  lua_setglobal(L, "arg");
#include "code.c"
  lua_close(L);
  return 0;
}