Static variables

[Phil Bewig <pbewig@...>]

I'm considering lua for a specific project.  One of my needs is for static
variables that retain their value from one invocation of a function to the
next.  In a quick reading of the manual section on variable scoping, I saw
no mention of static variables.  Does lua provide static variables?  Did I
miss something while reading the manual?

Many thanks,

Phil