Well, I lied. This isn’t step by step but I believe this commented source code dump should be more illustrative than any tutorial I’ve read, here we go 🙂
// fun.cpp
// This is for Lua 5.2, for Lua 5.1, see https://gist.github.com/kizzx2/1594905
#include <lua.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
class Foo
{
public:
Foo(const std::string & name) : name(name)
{
std::cout << "Foo is born" << std::endl;
}
std::string Add(int a, int b)
{
std::stringstream ss;
ss << name << ": " << a << " + " << b << " = " << (a+b);
return ss.str();
}
~Foo()
{
std::cout << "Foo is gone" << std::endl;
}
private:
std::string name;
};
// The general pattern to binding C++ class to Lua is to write a Lua
// thunk for every method for the class, so here we go:
int l_Foo_constructor(lua_State * L)
{
const char * name = luaL_checkstring(L, 1);
// We could actually allocate Foo itself as a user data but
// since user data can be GC'ed and we gain unity by using CRT's heap
// all along.
Foo ** udata = (Foo **)lua_newuserdata(L, sizeof(Foo *));
*udata = new Foo(name);
// Usually, we'll just use "Foo" as the second parameter, but I
// say luaL_Foo here to distinguish the difference:
//
// This 2nd parameter here is an _internal label_ for luaL, it is
// _not_ exposed to Lua by default.
//
// Effectively, this metatable is not accessible by Lua by default.
luaL_getmetatable(L, "luaL_Foo");
// The Lua stack at this point looks like this:
//
// 3| metatable "luaL_foo" |-1
// 2| userdata |-2
// 1| string parameter |-3
//
// So the following line sets the metatable for the user data to the luaL_Foo
// metatable
//
// We must set the metatable here because Lua prohibits setting
// the metatable of a userdata in Lua. The only way to set a metatable
// of a userdata is to do it in C.
lua_setmetatable(L, -2);
// The Lua stack at this point looks like this:
//
// 2| userdata |-1
// 1| string parameter |-2
//
// We return 1 so Lua callsite will get the user data and
// Lua will clean the stack after that.
return 1;
}
Foo * l_CheckFoo(lua_State * L, int n)
{
// This checks that the argument is a userdata
// with the metatable "luaL_Foo"
return *(Foo **)luaL_checkudata(L, n, "luaL_Foo");
}
int l_Foo_add(lua_State * L)
{
Foo * foo = l_CheckFoo(L, 1);
int a = (int)luaL_checknumber(L, 2);
int b = (int)luaL_checknumber(L, 3);
std::string s = foo->Add(a, b);
lua_pushstring(L, s.c_str());
// The Lua stack at this point looks like this:
//
// 4| result string |-1
// 3| metatable "luaL_foo" |-2
// 2| userdata |-3
// 1| string parameter |-4
//
// Return 1 to return the result string to Lua callsite.
return 1;
}
int l_Foo_destructor(lua_State * L)
{
Foo * foo = l_CheckFoo(L, 1);
delete foo;
return 0;
}
void RegisterFoo(lua_State * L)
{
luaL_Reg sFooRegs[] =
{
{ "new", l_Foo_constructor },
{ "add", l_Foo_add },
{ "__gc", l_Foo_destructor },
{ NULL, NULL }
};
// Create a luaL metatable. This metatable is not
// exposed to Lua. The "luaL_Foo" label is used by luaL
// internally to identity things.
luaL_newmetatable(L, "luaL_Foo");
// Register the C functions _into_ the metatable we just created.
luaL_setfuncs (L, sFooRegs, 0);
// The Lua stack at this point looks like this:
//
// 1| metatable "luaL_Foo" |-1
lua_pushvalue(L, -1);
// The Lua stack at this point looks like this:
//
// 2| metatable "luaL_Foo" |-1
// 1| metatable "luaL_Foo" |-2
// Set the "__index" field of the metatable to point to itself
// This pops the stack
lua_setfield(L, -1, "__index");
// The Lua stack at this point looks like this:
//
// 1| metatable "luaL_Foo" |-1
// The luaL_Foo metatable now has the following fields
// - __gc
// - __index
// - add
// - new
// Now we use setglobal to officially expose the luaL_Foo metatable
// to Lua. And we use the name "Foo".
//
// This allows Lua scripts to _override_ the metatable of Foo.
// For high security code this may not be called for but
// we'll do this to get greater flexibility.
lua_setglobal(L, "Foo");
}
int main()
{
lua_State * L = luaL_newstate();
luaL_openlibs(L);
RegisterFoo(L);
int erred = luaL_dofile(L, "fun.lua");
if(erred)
std::cout << "Lua error: " << luaL_checkstring(L, -1) << std::endl;
lua_close(L);
return 0;
}
-- fun.lua
-- Because the metatable has been exposed
-- to us, we can actually add new functions
-- to Foo
function Foo:speak()
print("Hello, I am a Foo")
end
local foo = Foo.new("fred")
local m = foo:add(3, 4)
-- "fred: 3 + 4 = 7"
print(m)
-- "Hello, I am a Foo"
foo:speak()
-- Let's rig the original metatable
Foo.add_ = Foo.add
function Foo:add(a, b)
return "here comes the magic: " .. self:add_(a, b)
end
m = foo:add(9, 8)
-- "here comes the magic: fred: 9 + 8 = 17"
print(m)