Lua process vararg in function process only 1st parameter - lua

I'm trying to get a bit tricky logging, but can't get why ... processing only 1st parameter in a function called
I have this function
local logger = function (name, ...)
-- Expected table processing here, but no.
print("[" .. name .. "] log called with " .. ...)
end
return setmetatable({}, {__index = function(self, name)
local log = function(...)
return logger(name, ...)
end
self[name] = log
return log
end})
And how it's called
local testf = require "test_log"["TestA"]
testf("TestB", "TestC")
testf("TestC", "TestB")
But getting back this result
[TestA] log called with TestB
[TestA] log called with TestC
The problem I can't get 2nd (and further) parameters from testf function and can't get why.
Thanks in advance!

Your code uses only first parameter
local s = ''
for i=1,select('#',...) do s = s .. select(i, ...) end
print("[" .. name .. "] log called with " .. s)
Also, you can use s = table.concat({...}), but it will produce different results in cases where vararg contains nil values

You can't concatenate ... because it's not a value. Instead, Lua just takes the first value of the list.
If you want to concatenate more than one value, use table.concat first:
local concatenated = table.concat({...})
You could also do something like this instead if you're feeling particularly smart today:
local logger = function (...)
print(string.format("[%s] log called with"..string.rep(" %s", select("#")), ...))
end

Related

How can I prevent loadstring from getting hooked like this

Here I have a loadstring but attacker can just hook it and steal it's content like bellow. I want to make a anti hook so that it can be prevented.
-- Save copies of orignal functions
local o_load = _G["load"]
local o_loadstring = _G["loadstring"]
local o_unpack = _G["unpack"]
local o_pairs = _G["pairs"]
local o_writefile = _G["writefile"]
local o_print = _G["print"]
local o_tostring = _G["tostring"]
-- Dynamic function names
local load_name = tostring(_G["load"])
local loadstring_name = tostring(_G["loadstring"])
local tostring_name = tostring(_G["tostring"])
-- For multiple instances of loadstring or load being used
local files_loadstring = 1
local files_load = 1
-- Hide function names
_G["tostring"] = function(...)
local args = {...}
local arg = o_unpack(args)
if arg == _G["tostring"] then
return tostring_name
end
if arg == _G["loadstring"] then
return loadstring_name
end
if arg == _G["load"] then
return load_name
end
local ret = { o_tostring(o_unpack(args)) }
local value = o_unpack(ret)
return value
end
-- Hook loadstring
_G["loadstring"] = function(...)
local args = {...}
o_print("loadstring called")
local str = ""
for k, v in o_pairs(args) do
str = str .. o_tostring(v) .. " "
end
o_writefile("hook_loadstring"..o_tostring(files_loadstring)..".lua", str)
o_print("file written to hook_loadstring"..o_tostring(files_loadstring)..".lua")
files_loadstring = files_loadstring +1
local ret = { o_loadstring(o_unpack(args)) }
str = ""
for k, v in o_pairs(ret) do
str = str .. o_tostring(v) .. " "
end
return o_unpack(ret)
end
-- Hook load
_G["load"] = function(...)
local args = {...}
o_print("load called")
local str = ""
for k, v in o_pairs(args) do
str = str .. o_tostring(v) .. " "
end
o_writefile("hook_load"..o_tostring(files_load)..".lua", str)
o_print("file written to hook_load"..o_tostring(files_load)..".lua")
files_load = files_load +1
local ret = { o_load(o_unpack(args)) }
str = ""
for k, v in o_pairs(ret) do
str = str .. o_tostring(v) .. " "
end
return o_unpack(ret)
end
-- bellow is the loadstring function with a lua and all it's content is getting hooked and writen in a file
loadstring("local a = 1;")()`
I tried using tostring(loadstring) to compare the function name to check if it's real or fake but attacker can just hook tostring as well and give original function name so my anti hook won't work at all. Also I can't do writefile = nil or print = nil so attacker can't print or write the file since he saved a copy of these functions on top of the file so his code will work always. How can I prevent my loadstring from getting hooked like this. Please help.
I just want my content inside loadstring not to be stolen.
loadstring being hooked implies that the attacker's code runs before your code and in the same environment. This implies that all functions of the global environment may be hooked - from loadstring over tostring and including the debug library. Thus, the only thing you may rely on (and even that is uncertain, depending on which software is interpreting your Lua) are "hard-wired" (e.g. syntactical) Lua language features. You can take a look at the complete syntax of Lua. Notice that all these are basic constructs that won't help you at all; everything advanced in Lua uses function calls and the global environment, which may be hooked.
Whatever loads these scripts would need to be patched to either (1) load everything in a separate, clean environment (2) protect the global environment or at least a few selected functions, but even then the "loader" could be tampered with to remove these "protections".
In conclusion, you can't reliably prevent or detect loadstring being hooked. If you are providing someone with code for them to run, that code inevitably has to run at some point, and at that point they will be able to "steal" it. The "best" you can do is obfuscate your code so that there is little benefit from stealing it.
Bottom line: As long as your software runs "on-premise" (on their machines) rather than "as a service" (on your machines), they will always be able to steal and analyze your code; all you can do is make it harder e.g. through obfuscation or checks (which may be circumvented however).

Lua not instantiating local variable fast enogh to print it? Embeded ESP8266

I got an EPS8226 on which I uploaded a main.lua file and some other configs. When I run main.lua with dofile() in the terminal, the print from the callback function prints only "sensorId" without "sent 0". Yet, if I run main.lua again, or I print() something before (either inside the function() that calls the callback, or inside the callback itself) it will print properly "sensorId sent 0". This also works if I do not use the local variable.
function registerReaders()
for key, value in pairs(sensorConfig.data)
do
gpio.mode(value.pin, gpio.INPUT)
value.timer:alarm(value.polling, tmr.ALARM_AUTO, function() callbacks.sendData(sensorConfig.sensorId[key]) end)
tmr.create():alarm(1000, tmr.ALARM_SINGLE, function() callbacks.sendData(sensorConfig.sensorId[key]) end)
end
end
Printing "[sensorId_value]"
callbacks.sendData = function(sensorId)
local data = 1
print(sensorId .. " sent " .. data)
end
Printing properly ("OK" then "[sensorId_value] sent 0")
callbacks.sendData = function(sensorId)
local data = 1
print("OK")
print(sensorId .. " sent " .. data)
end
Printing properly ("[sensorId_value] sent 1")
callbacks.sendData = function(sensorId)
print(sensorId .. " sent 0")
end
In all examples sensorId is a variable, not a string, so unless sensorId = "sensorId" none of them should be printing "sensorId sent 0".
In the first example (all of them, actually) " sent " is a literal, it should output regardless of the value of data.
Shouldn't the second example print "[...] sent 1"?
Try using a variable name other than data, maybe there's some forward value confusion.

How to prevent Lua from returning the final value of an expression?

This is a weird question as I'm not so sure how to ask, but here's the problem:
BeforeTime = os.clock()
function NewFunction( Name, Value )
Name = function()
return Value
end
end
NewFunction( RunningTime, (os.clock()-BeforeTime) )
while true do
print(RunningTime()) -- will always return same value, i want the updated
end
The example above is not exactly my context, but its the easiest way to explain my problem.
I guess I could require that the parameter 'Value' needs to be a function, but is there another way?
NewFunction creates a function and assigns it to the Name parameter. But, in Lua, actual parameters are passed by value (like Java and C) and formal parameters are effectively local variables. The assigned value is never used and it can't be used outside the function.
To make a function return a non-empty list of values, use a return statement.
Here's a similar function for a timer:
local function CreateTimer()
local BeforeTime = os.clock()
return function()
return os.clock() - BeforeTime
end
end
You can use it like this:
local RunningTime = CreateTimer()
while true do
print(RunningTime())
end
Your code does not run because NewFunction doesn't do what you think it should.
If you add the line below before the loop, then it works fine.
RunningTime = function() return (os.clock()-BeforeTime) end

Get name of argument of function in lua

When call a lua function like
PrintMe(MyVariableName)
I would like to be able to actually print "MyVariableName" and not it's value(well, for demo purposes).
Obviously I could just pass the string but that requires extra quotes and I also would like to print it's value.
e.g.,
MyVariable = 4
PrintVariable(MyVariable)
Would print "MyVariable is 4" or whatever
I do not want to have to duplicate the name and variable like
PrintVariable(MyVariable, "MyVariable")
as this is unnecessary duplication.
Can lua handle it?
What I'm doing now is passing the variable name in quotes and using loadstring to get the value but I would like to just pass the variable directly without the extra unnecessary quotes(which I thought debug.getlocal did but it ends up returning the value instead of the name).
Here is mock example
function printme1(var, val)
print(var.." = "..val)
end
function printme2(v)
local r
loadstring("r = "..v)() -- equivalent to r = a but must be used since v is a string representing a and not the object a
print(v.." = "..tostring(r))
end
function printme3(v)
-- unknown
end
a = 3
printme1("a", a)
printme2("a")
printme3(a)
In this case all 3 should print the same thing. printme3 obviously is the most convenient.
You can't say PrintVariable(MyVariable), because Lua gives you no way of determining which variable (if any; a constant could have been used) was used to pass an argument to your function. However, you can say PrintVariable('MyVariable') then used the debug API to look for a local variable in the caller's scope which has that name:
function PrintVariable(name)
-- default to showing the global with that name, if any
local value = _G[name]
-- see if we can find a local in the caller's scope with that name
for i=1,math.huge do
local localname, localvalue = debug.getlocal(2,i,1)
if not localname then
break -- no more locals to check
elseif localname == name then
value = localvalue
end
end
if value then
print(string.format("%s = %s", name, tostring(value)))
else
print(string.format("No variable named '%s' found.", name))
end
end
Now you can say:
PrintVariable('MyVariable')
While in this case will print "MyVariable = 4".
Not, if you really want to do this without the quotes, you could check the caller's locals for variables that have a supplied value, but that's occasionally going to give you the wrong variable name if there is more than one variable in the caller's scope with a given value. With that said, here's how you'd do that:
function PrintVariable(value)
local name
-- see if we can find a local in the caller's scope with the given value
for i=1,math.huge do
local localname, localvalue = debug.getlocal(2,i,1)
if not localname then
break
elseif localvalue == value then
name = localname
end
end
-- if we couldn't find a local, check globals
if not name then
for globalname, globalvalue in pairs(_G) do
if globalvalue == value then
name = globalname
end
end
end
if name then
print(string.format("%s = %s", name, tostring(value)))
else
print(string.format("No variable found for the value '%s'.", tostring(value)))
end
end
Now you can say PrintVariable(MyVariable), but if there happened to be another variable in the caller's scope with the value 4, and it occurred before MyVariable, it's that variable name that will be printed.
you can do stuff like this with the debug library... something like this does what you seem to be looking for:
function a_func(arg1, asdf)
-- if this function doesn't use an argument... it shows up as (*temporary) in
-- calls to debug.getlocal() because they aren't used...
if arg1 == "10" then end
if asdf == 99 then end
-- does stuff with arg1 and asdf?
end
-- just a function to dump variables in a user-readable format
function myUnpack(tbl)
if type(tbl) ~= "table" then
return ""
end
local ret = ""
for k,v in pairs(tbl) do
if tostring(v) ~= "" then
ret = ret.. tostring(k).. "=".. tostring(v).. ", "
end
end
return string.gsub(ret, ", $", "")
end
function hook()
-- passing 2 to to debug.getinfo means 'give me info on the function that spawned
-- this call to this function'. level 1 is the C function that called the hook.
local info = debug.getinfo(2)
if info ~= nil and info.what == "Lua" then
local i, variables = 1, {""}
-- now run through all the local variables at this level of the lua stack
while true do
local name, value = debug.getlocal(2, i)
if name == nil then
break
end
-- this just skips unused variables
if name ~= "(*temporary)" then
variables[tostring(name)] = value
end
i = i + 1
end
-- this is what dumps info about a function thats been called
print((info.name or "unknown").. "(".. myUnpack(variables).. ")")
end
end
-- tell the debug library to call lua function 'hook 'every time a function call
-- is made...
debug.sethook(hook, "c")
-- call a function to try it out...
a_func("some string", 2012)
this results in the output:
a_func(asdf=2012, arg1=some string)
you can do fancier stuff to pretty this up, but this basically covers how to do what you're asking.
I have bad news, my friend. You can access function parameter names as they appear at the top of the function, but the data to access exactly what they were named in the calling function does not exist. See the following:
function PrintVariable(VariableToPrint)
--we can use debug.getinfo() to determine the name 'VariableToPrint'
--we cannot determine the name 'MyVariable' without some really convoluted stuff (see comment by VBRonPaulFan on his own answer)
print(VariableToPrint);
end
MyVariable = 4
PrintVariable(MyVariable)
To illustrate this, imagine if we had done:
x = 4
MyVariable = x
MyOtherVariable = x
x = nil
PrintVariable(MyVariable)
Now if you were Lua, what name would you attach in the metadata to the variable that ends up getting passed to the function? Yes, you could walk up the stack with debug.getint() looking for the variable that was passed in, but you may find several references.
Also consider:
PrintVariable("StringLiteral")
What would you call that variable? It has a value but no name.
You could just use this form:
local parms = { "MyVariable" }
local function PrintVariable(vars)
print(parms[1]..": "..vars[1])
end
local MyVariable = "bar"
PrintVariable{MyVariable}
Which gives:
MyVariable: bar
It isn't generic, but it is simple. You avoid the debug library and loadstring by doing it this way. If your editor is any good, you could write a macro to do it.
Another possible solution is add this facility your self.
The Lua C API and source is pretty simple and extendable.
I/we don't know the context of your project/work but if you ARE making/embedding your own Lua build you could extend the debug library with something to do this.
Lua passes it's values by reference, but unknown offhand if these contain a string name in them and if so if easily accessible.
In your example the value declaration is the same as:
_G["MyVariable"] = 4
Since it's global. If it were declared local then like others stated here you can enumerate those via debug.getlocal(). But again in the C context of the actual reference context it might not matter.
Implement a debug.getargumentinfo(...) that extends the argument table with name key, value pairs.
This is quite an old topic and I apologize for bringing it back to life.
In my experience with lua, the closest I know to what the OP asked for is something like this:
PrintVariable = {}
setmetatable(PrintVariable, {__index = function (self, k, v) return string.format('%s = %s', k, _G[k]) end})
VAR = 0
VAR2 = "Hello World"
print(PrintVariable.VAR, PrintVariable.VAR2)
-- Result: VAR = 0 VAR2 = Hello World
I do not give more explanation, because the code is quite readable, however:
What happens here is simple, you only set a metatable to the PrintVariable variable and add the __index metamethod that is called when the table is forced to search for a value in its index, thanks to this functionality you can achieve what you see in the example.
Reference: https://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html
I hope that future and new visitors will find this helpful.

What's with PCALL or is Wowwiki wrong?

This is a WoW (World of Warcraft) lua script question. Not many of these get asked here but I have no where to turn and Stackoverflow is the programmer oasis for answers.
Question:
Wowwiki states that the 2nd, 3rd, 4th arguments are your calling functions 1st, 2nd, 3rd arguments. I don't find this to be true. I find that the 3rd, 4th, 5th arguments end up being the 1st, 2nd, 3rd arguments.
Link: http://www.wowwiki.com/API_pcall
Function:
function myTest(arg1)
return arg1 .. 10;
end
Problem:
local retOK, ret1 = pcall(myTest,"string value");
when I try the sample I get an error of "trying to perform concatenate on local 'arg1' (a nil value)". If I change the code to:
local retOK, ret1 = pcall(myTest,"string value", "bob");
then I get the output of "bob10". Where does the 2nd argument go and what is it for?
More Testing:
function BobsToolbox:RunTest()
local test1, value1 = pcall(BobsToolbox.Test1, "string value");
SharpDeck:Print("Test1: " .. tostring(test1) .. " Value: " .. tostring(value1));
end
function BobsToolbox:Test1(arg1)
return arg1 .. "10";
end
Results: attempt to concatenate local 'arg1' (a nil value)
function BobsToolbox:RunTest()
local test1, value1 = pcall(Test1, "string value");
SharpDeck:Print("Test1: " .. tostring(test1) .. " Value: " .. tostring(value1));
end
function Test1(arg1)
return arg1 .. "10";
end
Results: string value10
I am new to lua and I can't understand why these are different.
New Question:
The following code works but why?
function BobsToolbox:RunTest()
local test1, value1 = pcall(BobsToolbox.Test1, "string value");
SharpDeck:Print("Test1: " .. tostring(test1) .. " Value: " .. tostring(value1));
end
function BobsToolbox.Test1(arg1)
return arg1 .. "10";
end
What's the difference between the following: ("." vs ":")
function BobsToolbox.Test1(arg1)
function BobsToolbox:Test1(arg1)
Lua Documentation:
http://www.lua.org/pil/16.html
This use of a self parameter is a central point in any object-oriented language. Most OO languages have this mechanism partially hidden from the programmer, so that she does not have to declare this parameter (although she still can use the word self or this inside a method). Lua can also hide this parameter, using the colon operator. We can rewrite the previous method definition as
function Account:withdraw (v)
self.balance = self.balance - v
end
and the method call as
a:withdraw(100.00)
The effect of the colon is to add an extra hidden parameter in a method definition and to add an extra argument in a method call. The colon is only a syntactic facility, although a convenient one; there is nothing really new here. We can define a function with the dot syntax and call it with the colon syntax, or vice-versa, as long as we handle the extra parameter correctly:
Account = { balance=0,
withdraw = function (self, v)
self.balance = self.balance - v
end
}
function Account:deposit (v)
self.balance = self.balance + v
end
Account.deposit(Account, 200.00)
Account:withdraw(100.00)
Possible Conclusion:
With this in mind I assume that when calling a ":" function using "pcall" you must supply the "self" argument.
Related: There are nice live code editors for WoW. I used to use LuaSlinger, but turns out that's no longer developed and the developer recommends Hack instead.
However, what you might be encountering here is that the colon method-call syntax is just syntax sugar, ditto for method definitions, IIRC. Basically, if you do foo:bar("quux!"), where foo is an object, you are in reality just doing foo.bar(foo, "quux!").
Hope that helps!
Well, I don't think WoWWiki is wrong. Here is the code I am using:
function myTest(arg1) return arg1 .. 10; end
local retOK, ret1 = pcall(myTest,"string value");
DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(ret1);
local retOK, ret1 = pcall(myTest,"string value", "bob");
DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(ret1);
Here is the output I get in my General chat box:
string value10
string value10
How are you trying your sample code? I just pasted my code into an existing mod lua file and made sure that mod was enabled in the addons window before selecting my character and logging in. I made a few changes to the source lua file and typed:
/console reloadui
To try the new changes and have the results output to my screen. I don't have much advice to offer you, because I haven't done much work with WoW addons. Have you tried this code in a blank addon to make sure nothing else is interfering? Have you actually tried the code in game? If you can provide any more information or want me to try anything else, let me know!
Update: Decided to try a few more tests. Here are the tests (with the same function):
local retOK, ret1 = pcall(myTest,"");
DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(ret1);
local retOK, ret1 = pcall(myTest, nil, "bob");
DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage(ret1);
And the results:
10
attempt to concatenate local 'arg1' (a nil value)
It's interesting that the error I see when arg1 is nil is slightly different than the error you see. I'd be interested in knowing how you are testing your code. Or maybe you didn't copy the error down verbatim? I guess you could also try clearing out your WTF folder and disabling the rest of your addons to test this function. If it makes a difference, then you can enable them one a time until you find the problem.

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