19 December 2011, 11:39

Lua 5.2.0 delivers new features

Lua logo The developers of Lua, the lightweight, embeddable, scripting language, have announced the updating of the language with the release of version 5.2.0 – five years after the 5.1 branch of the language was launched. The dynamically typed language has seen changes in how it handles function environments and global variables, and how and when coroutines can yield results. The new version also adds light C functions, an emergency garbage collector, a goto statement and a new library of bitwise operations.

Lua has been developed since 1993 by a team at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. It has been used in applications such as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and World of Warcraft. The language is in constant development with "work" editions acting as snapshots of current enhancements to the language and runtime.

The MIT licensed Lua 5.2.0 is available to download. The reference manual for Lua 5.2 is currently only available in English; the manual also notes changes that are incompatible with previous versions. An online Lua demo page is also available for those wishing to experiment with the language.