Re: Embedding scripts in executable

[Ross Berteig <Ross@...>]

At 03:50 PM 9/27/2011, Tim Caswell wrote:
>....
>I have a folder full of lua modules (written in lua) and I want
>them embedded in my binary at compile/link time in such a way
>that the require system can find them.
>
>Is there a cross-platform way to embed these scripts and make
>them accessible to require?

I'm using Mathew Wild's Squish[1] along with luac and bin2c to 
accomplish this in one project. Squish collects (and can also 
discard whitespace and comments, and even GZip) all the module 
sources into one amalgamation .lua file that if executed 
preloads all the modules. I then use luac and bin2c to turn it 
into a constant array and code to load and execute it. That file 
is #included inline at a suitable point early in the program 
startup. After that point, all of the modules are sitting in 
package.preload and require just does the right thing. It turned 
a small utility that had been one .exe along with ten .lua files 
into a single .exe file, and made the downstream user much happier.

[1] http://matthewwild.co.uk/projects/squish/home

I ended up with a single .exe file because this utility 
statically linked its lua core and is not expected or required 
to be extensible with DLLs. Note that Squish cannot do anything 
about binary modules or supporting DLLs.

>I'm using luajit, but I think this question is generic.

I haven't tried this with LuaJIT, but I don't think there's too 
much magic going on in the Squished output. Squish is open 
source, so if there is an issue there is a chance it can be patched.

Ross Berteig                               Ross@CheshireEng.com
Cheshire Engineering Corp.           http://www.CheshireEng.com/