Lua Fundamentals Training Course

Introduction to Lua

• A brief history of Lua
• Objectives, features, and limitations of Lua
• Accessing Lua documentation and tutorial resources
• Installing the Lua interpreter
• Configuring and utilizing LuaRocks

Basic syntax and semantics

• Identifiers
• Comments and block comments
• Global variables and strict mode enforcement
• Local variables
• Standalone programs and command-line arguments
• Compilation units, chunks, expressions, and semicolons

Data types and data structures

• Primitive types: nil, boolean, number, string
• Object types: function, userdata, thread, table
• Differences between references/objects and primitive values
• The central role of tables in Lua

Introduction to tables and their versatility

• Tables as associative arrays
• Tables as numeric arrays and sequences

Basic control structures

• The if-then-elseif-else-end structure
• While loops
• Repeat-until loops
• Simplified for loops

Error handling

• Return values versus exceptions
• Transforming return values into exceptions
• Converting exceptions back to return values
• Understanding error levels

Example programs

• Polynomial evaluation
• Breadth-first search implementation
• Additional practical exercises

Deeper dive into functions

• Named arguments
• Object-oriented invocation syntax
• Closures
• Currying
• Tail calls
• Multiple assignment and return values
• Variable arguments (varargs)

Iterators and coroutines

• The generic for loop
• Stateless versus stateful iterators
• Distinguishing between iterators and coroutines

Metatables and metamethods

• Implementing sets using metatables
• The __tostring metamethod
• Arithmetic metamethods
• The __index and __newindex metamethods
• The __len metamethod

Modules and packages

• Loading and using modules
• Creating custom modules
• Structuring modules into packages

Object-oriented programming

• Core components of OOP in Lua
• Practical examples

Advanced language features

• Weak tables
• Finalizers
• Compilation, evaluation, and loading processes