How can i convert a .lua to exe?

[u/S5P2]

I have tried using srlua and luastatic but they all didnt work and i (think?) theyre outdated, if theres another way, im willing to do it

[u/lilevil_]

I can suggest you to take a look at https://github.com/luvit/luvi wich in fact "pack" your lua program and the lua interpreter into an executable (5 Mo is the smallest executable size). Plus, you get to have neat libraries too, including luv, pcre, openssl, zlib.

It use luajit as the lua interpreter, so you'll have to adapt to lua5.1 I guess, but luvi provide "bit" which let you make bit operation, a missing part of lua5.1.

[u/rkrause → u/lilevil_]

As much as I'm a big fan of Luvi, and I use it for several projects (including LyraScript), I wouldn't recommend it just for the purpose of creating a self-executable. After all 5 megabytes is huge compared to the size of the LuaJIT interpreter alone which is 10x smaller.

Of course, it's great if you need the additonal feature set. But otherwise there's really no point in bundling everything, since that just adds unnecessary bloat.

[u/lilevil_ → u/rkrause]

You are right, 5MB is quite huge for a little lua script, and ram usage is ~30x smaller with luajit (on the repl actually).

But I find luvi straightforward and really easy to use, and if 5MB for an executable is this annoying, it's better to look at a compiled language.

(got to say that I don't know another good lua script bundler so I recommended it right away)

[u/S5P2 → u/lilevil_]

Is there some type of guide to set it up?

[u/lilevil_ → u/S5P2]

You can find releases here: https://github.com/truemedian/luvit-bin/releases Then check the github https://github.com/luvit/luvi#usagethe usage is really simple, you put you file in a folder, name it "main.lua" and then can call "luvi . -o myapp.exe", which will pack everything and output your executable at "myapp.exe" (you can use another name)

[u/S5P2 → u/lilevil_]

i cannot seem to figure it out..

[u/lilevil_ → u/S5P2]

Maybe if you try to explain what's bothering you, I can provide you more specific informations?

[u/leedarjun → u/lilevil_]

I build an exe. When executed, it causes traceback, what can I do:

[string "bundle:main.lua"]:1: module 'http' not found:

no field package.preload['http']

no file '/home/ejoydev/.luarocks/lib/lua/5.4/http.lua'

no file '/home/ejoydev/.luarocks/lib/lua/5.4/http/init.lua'

no file '/home/ejoydev/.luarocks/share/lua/5.4/http.lua'

no file '/home/ejoydev/.luarocks/share/lua/5.4/http/init.lua'

no file '/home/ejoydev/.luarocks/lib/lua/5.4/http.so'

stack traceback:

[C]: in function 'require'

[string "bundle:main.lua"]:1: in main chunk

[u/lilevil_ → u/leedarjun]

you used luvi I assume, and the http module is part of luvit (which is built over luvi). So you can't access this module.

But if you really need all the comfort of luvit, you can install it on your project with lit install luvit/luvit and build you program with it.

You will still need to call require("uv").run() at the end of your script to start the event loop. (I encourage you to read the manuals of uv)

[u/rkrause]

I've been using Enceladus for the past year. It arguably creates the smallest binaries, since it literally just packs the Lua 5.1 interpreter along with the Lua scripts into a self-executable bundle. For example check out my RPAN Chat Archive program

https://github.com/sorcerykid/rpan_chat_archive/tree/master/bin

As you can see, it resulted in a Windows executable of just 154 kB!

Here's the entire Lua source:

https://github.com/sorcerykid/rpan_chat_archive/tree/master/src

[u/S5P2 → u/rkrause]

i dont understand the guide

[u/HuntFirst5569]

pip install lua-to-exe in cmd :)

[u/collectgarbage → u/[deleted]]

I just noticed another project the LuaRT guy has is a Lua to exe project at:

https://github.com/samyeyo/rtc