Internal Lua support on RPM

[Gustavo Niemeyer <niemeyer@...>]

I'm glad to announce that I've just committed into the RPM CVS
HEAD the internal support for Lua (http://www.lua.org) scripts.

Please, notice that this is EXPERIMENTAL stuff.

Why embedding Lua in RPM?
-------------------------

- Many scripts execute simple operations which in an internal
  interpreter require no forking at all
- Internal scripts reduce or eliminate external dependencies
  related to script slots
- Internal scripts operate even under unfriendly situations
  like stripped chroots (anyone said installers?)
- Internal scripts in Lua are really fast
- Syntax errors in internal scripts are detected at
  package building time

How it works?
-------------

Just use "-p <lua>" in any script slot (%pre, %post, etc).

E.g.

%pre -p <lua>
print("Wow! It really works!")

What is accessible from Lua?
----------------------------

The standard Lua library, the posix module (basic system access,
by Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo and Claudio Terra), and the rex
module (regular expressions, by Reuben Thomas).

Wow! This will bloat RPM!
-------------------------

No, it will not. The rpm library size will be increased by
about 150kb, without any additional dependencies.

When will it be available in the stable RPM?
--------------------------------------------

Some day. :-)

Where can I get more information?
---------------------------------

- RPM code
- #rpm at irc.freenode.org
- The Lua manual (http://www.lua.org/manual/5.0/manual.html)
- The documentation, once I write it
- Send me an email

Thanks
------

Thanks to Conectiva, to Jeff Johnson, to the Lua folks, and to
everyone who contributed in some way.

-- 
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net