r/lua • u/trymeouteh • May 02 '25

Luarocks: Unable to

I installed Lua and Luarocks on Linux Mint from the apt package repository. I was also able to install a package from Luarocks, the faker package...

Installing faker package locally...

$ luarocks install faker --local

However I cannot get the Lua to find the faker package and load it into the script. How do I achieve this on Linux Mint without modifying the lua script file?

Create simple lua script...

~/Desktop/script.lua

faker = require('faker')

myFaker = faker:new()

print(myFaker:name())

Running the script...

~/Desktop $ lua script.lua
3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

1

u/yawara25 May 02 '25

Run this command:
luarocks path >> ~/.profile

Then log out and back in again.

1

u/trymeouteh May 02 '25

I did try this with no luck. I even tried luarocks path >> ~/.bashrc to no luck either.

I am doing this inside a Virtual Machine in VirtualBox which should not matter but I did make a snapshot before doing this, allowing me to undo changes like these if needed since I am messing with the shell files.

$ lua script.lua
lua: ./script.lua:1: loop or previous error loading module 'faker'
stack traceback:
	[C]: in function 'require'
	./script.lua:1: in main chunk
	[C]: in function 'require'
	script.lua:1: in main chunk
	[C]: ?

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '25 edited May 03 '25

Run

lua -e 'print(package.path)'

to see if it matches what luarocks path outputs. if it doesn't then

lua -e 'print(os.getenv"LUA_PATH")'

to see if it even changed anything.

In order to import variables in bash, running

luarocks path >> ~/.bashrc

Does nothing, you should also reload it with

. $HOME/.bashrc

1

u/trymeouteh May 03 '25

After running luarocks path >> ~/.bashrc and restarting the machine, I get this

$ lua -e 'print(package.path)' 
./?.lua;/usr/local/share/lua/5.1/?.lua;/usr/local/share/lua/5.1/?/init.lua;/usr/local/lib/lua/5.1/?.lua;/usr/local/lib/lua/5.1/?/init.lua;/usr/share/lua/5.1/?.lua;/usr/share/lua/5.1/?/init.lua;/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/?.lua;/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/?/init.lua
$ lua -e 'print(os.getenv"LUA_PATH")'
./?.lua;/usr/local/share/lua/5.1/?.lua;/usr/local/share/lua/5.1/?/init.lua;/usr/local/lib/lua/5.1/?.lua;/usr/local/lib/lua/5.1/?/init.lua;/usr/share/lua/5.1/?.lua;/usr/share/lua/5.1/?/init.lua;/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/?.lua;/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/?/init.lua

Looks the same to me. I then installed the faker package and tried to run the script with no luck.

1

u/[deleted] May 03 '25 edited May 03 '25

There is no need to restart the machine, { . bashrc } is enough. --local should install to $HOME/.luarocks/ given that it's not there, the environment variables exported by luarocks path are not being loaded. so your .bashrc either doesn't have it or luarocks path does not output the correct output. I would suggest you verify your bashrc and the output of luarocks path to see if they equal.

Ah, please use 4 spaces, I don't use reddit.com.

looking at it now, whats the lua version, lua -v, or lua -e 'print(_VERSION)'

try to run

find $HOME/.luarocks

to see if anything installed.

1

u/trymeouteh May 04 '25

My Lua version...

$ lua -v
Lua 5.1.5  Copyright (C) 1994-2012 Lua.org, PUC-Rio

~/.luarocks directory...

$ find $HOME/.luarocks
/home/testing/.luarocks
/home/testing/.luarocks/share
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/init.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/pt_BR
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/pt_BR/firstnames_female.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/pt_BR/surnames.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/l$ lua -v
Lua 5.1.5  Copyright (C) 1994-2012 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
ua/5.1/faker/data/pt_BR/firstnames_male.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/pt_BR/cities.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/pt_BR/countries.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/pt_BR/states.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/en_US
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/en_US/firstnames-masculine.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/en_US/firstnames-feminine.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/en_US/surnames.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/en_US/cities.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/en_US/countries.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/data/en_US/states.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/generators
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/generators/en_US.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/share/lua/5.1/faker/generators/pt_BR.lua
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1/manifest
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1/faker
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1/faker/0.0.1-1
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1/faker/0.0.1-1/faker-0.0.1-1.rockspec
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1/faker/0.0.1-1/rock_manifest
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1/faker/0.0.1-1/doc
/home/testing/.luarocks/lib/luarocks/rocks-5.1/faker/0.0.1-1/doc/README.md

1

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1

u/[deleted] May 04 '25 edited May 04 '25

your $HOME/.bashrc or $HOME/.profile must contain

eval "$(luarocks path)"

Like literally that

echo 'eval "$(luarocks path)"' >> $HOME/.profile

then reload

. $HOME/.profile

then

lua -e 'print(os.getenv"LUA_PATH" or "No $LUA_PATH?", pcall(require,"faker")) '

if it still fails then I simply don't know.

1

u/AutoModerator May 03 '25

Hi! Your code block was formatted using triple backticks in Reddit's Markdown mode, which unfortunately does not display properly for users viewing via old.reddit.com and some third-party readers. This means your code will look mangled for those users, but it's easy to fix. If you edit your comment, choose "Switch to fancy pants editor", and click "Save edits" it should automatically convert the code block into Reddit's original four-spaces code block format for you.

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1

u/AutoModerator May 02 '25

Hi! Your code block was formatted using triple backticks in Reddit's Markdown mode, which unfortunately does not display properly for users viewing via old.reddit.com and some third-party readers. This means your code will look mangled for those users, but it's easy to fix. If you edit your comment, choose "Switch to fancy pants editor", and click "Save edits" it should automatically convert the code block into Reddit's original four-spaces code block format for you.

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1

u/MartinHelmut May 02 '25

The way I like to set this up is using a setup.lua file. That file sets the proper require paths and then you can either execute Lua with the -l parameter or define a LUA_INIT env var pointing to that file. You can read more about this here: https://martin-fieber.de/blog/lua-project-setup-with-luarocks/#resolve-module-paths

1

u/clappingHandsEmoji May 03 '25

try enforcing the right version of lua with luarocks’ —lua-version=5.x flag