Programming language · 1993

Lua

Lightweight programming language.

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Lua logo
CWritten in
1993First released
Roberto IerusalimschyDeveloper
dynamicTyping
MIT LicenseLicense
Built fromInfluenced Lua CLuaJITWrenIo
RuntimeInfluence

What is Lua written in?

Its runtime is implemented in C (well-documented).

What Lua is used for

Lua is a tiny, fast, embeddable scripting language designed to be dropped into larger programs, especially games and configuration. Its small footprint makes it ideal for extending C/C++ applications.

Notable software: scripting in World of Warcraft and Roblox, the Redis and Nginx (OpenResty) scripting layers, and many game engines.

Quick Facts

Designed by
Roberto Ierusalimschy
First released
1993
Typing
dynamic
License
MIT License
Filename extension
.lua
Website
www.lua.org

About Lua

Lua is a lightweight programming language. It is a dynamically typed and garbage-collected language that is executed directly by an interpreter. It supports imperative and multi-paradigm programming.

Lua first appeared in 1993 and was designed by Roberto Ierusalimschy. Lua keeps a steady, moderate following today.

How Lua is implemented

In the Language Lineage dataset, its runtime is implemented in C.

Lua in the language family tree

Lua drew on ideas from C++, CLU, Simple Object Language, DEL, and SNOBOL and went on to influence LuaJIT, Io, and Wren.

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata · Official site

Frequently Asked Questions

What language is Lua written in?
Lua is primarily implemented in C. See the implementation section above for details and source references.
Which languages did Lua influence?
Lua influenced LuaJIT, Io, Wren among others.
When was Lua first released?
Lua was first released in 1993. It was designed by Roberto Ierusalimschy.

Evidence Sources

Discover More

Embed this graph

Paste this iframe into any HTML page to show the Lua relationship graph.

<iframe src="https://www.languagelineage.org/embed?lang=lua" width="100%" height="500" loading="lazy" style="border:0" title="Lua relationship graph"></iframe>

Please attribute the visualization to Language Lineage and link to the Lua source record.

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