Creating & Programming Robots

All versions of LUA can be downloaded from . The code is downloaded and decompressed, this should give a folder called lua-5.1.5. A batch file build.cmd is used to build the LUA interpreter and libraries. It is a modified version of the original build.cmd file.

@echo off
:: ========================
:: file build.cmd
:: ========================
setlocal
:: you may change the following variable's value
:: to suit the downloaded version
set lua_version=5.1.5
 
set work_dir=%~dp0
:: Removes trailing backslash
:: to enhance readability in the following steps
set work_dir=%work_dir:~0,-1%
set lua_install_dir=c:\lua
set compiler_bin_dir=c:\TDM-GCC-64\bin
set lua_build_dir=%work_dir%\lua-%lua_version%
set path=%compiler_bin_dir%;%path%
 
cd /D %lua_build_dir%
mingw32-make PLAT=mingw
 
echo.
echo **** COMPILATION TERMINATED ****
echo.
echo **** BUILDING BINARY DISTRIBUTION ****
echo.
 
:: create a clean "binary" installation
mkdir %lua_install_dir%
mkdir %lua_install_dir%\doc
mkdir %lua_install_dir%\bin
mkdir %lua_install_dir%\lib
mkdir %lua_install_dir%\include
 
copy %lua_build_dir%\doc\*.* %lua_install_dir%\doc\*.*
copy %lua_build_dir%\src\*.exe %lua_install_dir%\bin\*.*
copy %lua_build_dir%\src\*.dll %lua_install_dir%\bin\*.*
copy %lua_build_dir%\src\luaconf.h %lua_install_dir%\include\*.*
copy %lua_build_dir%\src\lua.h %lua_install_dir%\include\*.*
copy %lua_build_dir%\src\lualib.h %lua_install_dir%\include\*.*
copy %lua_build_dir%\src\lauxlib.h %lua_install_dir%\include\*.*
::copy %lua_build_dir%\src\lua.hpp %lua_install_dir%\include\*.*
copy %lua_build_dir%\src\liblua.a %lua_install_dir%\lib\*.*
copy %lua_install_dir%\bin\lua51.dll %lua_install_dir%\lib\liblua51.dll
 
echo.
echo **** BINARY DISTRIBUTION BUILT ****
echo.
 
%lua_install_dir%\bin\lua.exe -e"print [[Hello!]];print[[Simple Lua test successful!!!]]"
 
echo.
 
pause

This code has to be modified depending on where your c compiler is and where you want LUA to be installed. In the file lua-5.1.5\src\Makefile, the comment at end of line 51 should be moved to another place, for example :

$(LUA_A): $(CORE_O) $(LIB_O)
	$(AR) $@ $(CORE_O) $(LIB_O)   # DLL needs all object files	
	$(RANLIB) $@

can be changed in :

# DLL needs all object files
$(LUA_A): $(CORE_O) $(LIB_O)
	$(AR) $@ $(CORE_O) $(LIB_O)	
	$(RANLIB) $@

At the end of the execution of the build command, the following text should appear :

C:\Users\Me>build
…
Hello!
Simple Lua test successful!!!
 
Press any key to continue . . .

The path environment variable can be set to use directly the LUA interpreter :

C:\Users\Me>setx path "%path%;c:\lua\bin"

Then the LUA interpreter can be simply used by typing lua in the command line :

C:\Users\Me>lua
Lua 5.1.5  Copyright (C) 1994-2012 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> a=2
> b=3
> print (a*b)
6
> ^C
C:\Users\Me>

To quit, type Ctrl-C.

Many LUA additional modules can be found here First we get the source code of lpack module for LUA 5.1 and decompress it. A new Makefile is defined as follows :

LUA_DIR=c:\lua
LUA_LIBDIR=$(LUA_DIR)\lib
LUA_INCDIR=$(LUA_DIR)\include
LIBFLAG= -shared 
RM= del
 
all: test
 
lpack.o: lpack.c
	gcc -I$(LUA_INCDIR) -c lpack.c
 
pack.dll: lpack.o
	gcc -o pack.dll $(LIBFLAG) lpack.o -L$(LUA_LIBDIR) -llua51
 
clean:
	$(RM) pack.dll lpack.o
 
test: pack.dll test.lua
	lua test.lua

Then, we build and test the pack module using this new Makefile :

C:\Users\Me\pack>mingw32-make PLAT=mingw
gcc -Ic:\lua\include -c lpack.c
gcc -o pack.dll -shared  lpack.o -Lc:\lua\lib -llua51
lua test.lua
1B4C75615100010404040800        12
false   12
13      27      Lua     81      0       1       4       8       4       8       0
A1B0B91212B9B0A1A1B0B912
13      314159265       314159265       314159265
F1D4C853FB210940400921FB53C8D4F1F1D4C853FB210940
25      3.14159265      3.14159265      3.14159265

The last thing to do is to copy the module in the V-REP folder :

C:\Users\Me\pack>copy pack.dll "c:\Program Files\V-REP3\V-REP_PRO_EDU\"

Here are some useful links used to add LUA modules to V-REP.

• IDE : codelite and it's |wiki
• gcc compiler : TDM-GCC 9.2.0
• decompress tar.gz : 7zip
• creating a DLL : mingw example
• installing LUA on Windows :lua-users.org wiki
• command line arguments :parameters explained
• Alternate gcc compiler (not used) : mingw-w64 and how to setup
• simple LUA module : hello world!
• adding functionalities to LUA : list of modules