override assert in lua - lua

my setup board uses lighttpd to provide web UI to the board.
It uses lua and JS to draw logic.
What I am seeing is If I enter an URL as "IPofboard/somejunkhere"; its properly throwing "404 not found"
But when I fire "IPofboard/somejunk.lp" (which is some junk lua file); It produces an "assert" error for file not found. Thats how lua works.
But I want to modify/override this assert to show same custom message as "404 not found"
any idea?
I am new to lua. Is it even doable?

As lhf mentions, it is very easy to redefine any function in Lua, but I think this may not be what you need. The issue is that after you do
local origAssert = assert
assert = function(message)
do something (possibly using origAssert)
end
then every function call that uses assert will use your new assert function, which is probably not what you want. Instead, you can call your function in "protected" mode: this will trap the assertion as an error message, and you can then decide what to do. For example,
ok, ret1, ret2 = pcall(yourFunction, arg1)
if not ok then
do something, possibly print ret1 (the error message)
end
Same thing if you are requiring a module that does some initialization:
ok, module = pcall(require, yourModuleName)
if not ok then
print("ERROR:", module) -- if not ok then module is err message
end

I'm not familiar with how lighttpd embeds Lua, but in Lua you can redefine anything, including functions from the standard Lua library, such as assert.

Related

Lua — If error in function, then do something

I feel like this should be simple, but can't seem to solve it. I have a function in Lua that's designed to validate a confirm code in a survey. Basically, if the ID is valid, then we can grab lots of data from that code, but if it's not a valid code, the script will break because it'll be populating nil values.
So, I basically need an error check — if the function can run properly, then run it. If it can't then I need to ask for a new code.
I've tried using pcall which feels like is exactly for this. I'm working off the Lua documentation:
if pcall(foo) then
-- no errors while running `foo'
...
else
-- `foo' raised an error: take appropriate actions
...
end
On my end, that means I have a function:
function populate()
... doing lots here to unencrypt and parse the ID someone gives and populate variables
end
Then I'm running the follwing:
if pcall(populate) then
print('no errors!') -- Just printing as a test, if there's no error, I'll run the script
else
print('Oh snap theres an error!) -- I'll change this to ask the user for a valid ID and then try again
end
What am I missing? I know it's going to be simple. But the last part of my code always returns the "Oh snap..." no matter what.
Thanks in advance, I have a super complex code running that I was able to build from just reading responses to other questions, but can't seem to get this simple part to work. Entirely possible I'm missing the point of pcall.
What do you expect?
If i am unsure what happen or which return value i should use for another condition i normally test/check in Lua Standalone...
€ lua
Lua 5.4.4 Copyright (C) 1994-2022 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> pcall(string.gsub,'foo','%l','bar') -- Check for lowercases
true barbarbar 3
> pcall(string.gsub,'foo','%u','bar') -- Check for uppercases
true foo 0
> -- In this case i have to use maybe the third return value to decide what to do?
> -- OK -- Lets go...
> a, b, c = pcall(string.gsub,'foo','%u','bar') -- Check for uppercases
> if a and c == 0 then print('Only Kiddies here!') return false end
Only Kiddies here!
false
>

luaL_loadbufferx returns syntaxerrors

I'm working on a personal project and I'm trying to get Lua to work on my embedded device.
I have my own simple file system that works with the the flash drive, and now I'm trying to use modules for the lua scripts that I run on the device.
I have edited linit.c, to make it also load the modules that are existing in the flash drive, and it works for a few modules, but for most of them it just gives me a syntax error when it parses the contents of the module. I have a lua interpreter running on my Windows machine and the code I'm writing is syntactically correct and works, and the Lua API that I use is of the same version 5.4 on the device.
These are the arguments I pass to
luaL_loadbufferx(L, luaCFunction, sizeOfModule, moduleName, "t")
where, L is the lua state, luaCFunction is the lua module wrapped in a C-style return statement, sizeOfModule, moduleName and t is selfexplanatory.
Right now luaL_loadbufferx is called in a loop for every module in my flash-drive, I have overwritten the openf function from the Lua API for these external modules.
This below is one of the examples of a module that gives me
"Syntax Error: PANIC, unprotected error in call to Lua API
[string "module"]:3: '(' expected near 'writeobj'"
File: module.lua
Contents:
function writeobj()
print('Hello World')
end
File: run.lua
Contents:
require ('module')
writeobj()
Does anyone know why this happens or did I not provide sufficient information? Please let me know.
The problem was that I thought the modules passed to the buffer had to be of the LuaToC form, i.e. "return { ...luamodule...}", but changing it to pass the module only to loadbuffer was sufficient enough because it covers the case of it not being in a C style return format.

Validate URL in Informix 4GL program

In my Informix 4GL program, I have an input field where the user can insert a URL and the feed is later being sent over to the web via a script.
How can I validate the URL at the time of input, to ensure that it's a live link? Can I make a call and see if I get back any errors?
I4GL checking the URL
There is no built-in function to do that (URLs didn't exist when I4GL was invented, amongst other things).
If you can devise a C method to do that, you can arrange to call that method through the C interface. You'll write the method in native C, and then write an I4GL-callable C interface function using the normal rules. When you build the program with I4GL c-code, you'll link the extra C functions too. If you build the program with I4GL-RDS (p-code), you'll need to build a custom runner with the extra function(s) exposed. All of this is standard technique for I4GL.
In general terms, the C interface code you'll need will look vaguely like this:
#include <fglsys.h>
// Standard interface for I4GL-callable C functions
extern int i4gl_validate_url(int nargs);
// Using obsolescent interface functions
int i4gl_validate_url(int nargs)
{
if (nargs != 1)
fgl_fatal(__FILE__, __LINE__, -1318);
char url[4096];
popstring(url, sizeof(url));
int r = validate_url(url); // Your C function
retint(r);
return 1;
}
You can and should check the manuals but that code, using the 'old style' function names, should compile correctly. The code can be called in I4GL like this:
DEFINE url CHAR(256)
DEFINE rc INTEGER
LET url = "http://www.google.com/"
LET rc = i4gl_validate_url(url)
IF rc != 0 THEN
ERROR "Invalid URL"
ELSE
MESSAGE "URL is OK"
END IF
Or along those general lines. Exactly what values you return depends on your decisions about how to return a status from validate_url(). If need so be, you can return multiple values from the interface function (e.g. error number and text of error message). Etc. This is about the simplest possible design for calling some C code to validate a URL from within an I4GL program.
Modern C interface functions
The function names in the interface library were all changed in the mid-00's, though the old names still exist as macros. The old names were:
popstring(char *buffer, int buflen)
retint(int retval)
fgl_fatal(const char *file, int line, int errnum)
You can find the revised documentation at IBM Informix 4GL v7.50.xC3: Publication library in PDF in the 4GL Reference Manual, and you need Appendix C "Using C with IBM Informix 4GL".
The new names start ibm_lib4gl_:
ibm_libi4gl_popMInt()
ibm_libi4gl_popString()
As to the error reporting function, there is one — it exists — but I don't have access to documentation for it any more. It'll be in the fglsys.h header. It takes an error number as one argument; there's the file name and a line number as the other arguments. And it will, presumably, be ibm_lib4gl_… and there'll be probably be Fatal or perhaps fatal (or maybe Err or err) in the rest of the name.
I4GL running a script that checks the URL
Wouldn't it be easier to write a shell script to get the status code? That might work if I can return the status code or any existing results back to the program into a variable? Can I do that?
Quite possibly. If you want the contents of the URL as a string, though, you'll might end up wanting to call C. It is certainly worth thinking about whether calling a shell script from within I4GL is doable. If so, it will be a lot simpler (RUN "script", IIRC, where the literal string would probably be replaced by a built-up string containing the command and the URL). I believe there are file I/O functions in I4GL now, too, so if you can get the script to write a file (trivial), you can read the data from the file without needing custom C. For a long time, you needed custom C to do that.
I just need to validate the URL before storing it into the database. I was thinking about:
#!/bin/bash
read -p "URL to check: " url
if curl --output /dev/null --silent --head --fail "$url"; then
printf '%s\n' "$url exist"
else
printf '%s\n' "$url does not exist"
fi
but I just need the output instead of /dev/null to be into a variable. I believe the only option is to dump the output into a temp file and read from there.
Instead of having I4GL run the code to validate the URL, have I4GL run a script to validate the URL. Use the exit status of the script and dump the output of curl into /dev/null.
FUNCTION check_url(url)
DEFINE url VARCHAR(255)
DEFINE command_line VARCHAR(255)
DEFINE exit_status INTEGER
LET command_line = "check_url ", url
RUN command_line RETURNING exit_status
RETURN exit_status
END FUNCTION {check_url}
Your calling code can analyze exit_status to see whether it worked. A value of 0 indicates success; non-zero indicates a problem of some sort, which can be deemed 'URL does not work'.
Make sure the check_url script (a) exits with status zero on success and non-zero on any sort of failure, and (b) doesn't write anything to standard output (or standard error) by default. The writing to standard error or output will screw up screen layouts, etc, and you do not want that. (You can obviously have options to the script that enable standard output, or you can invoke the script with options to suppress standard output and standard error, or redirect the outputs to /dev/null; however, when used by the I4GL program, it should be silent.)
Your 'script' (check_url) could be as simple as:
#!/bin/bash
exec curl --output /dev/null --silent --head --fail "${1:-http://www.example.com/"
This passes the first argument to curl, or the non-existent example.com URL if no argument is given, and replaces itself with curl, which generates a zero/non-zero exit status as required. You might add 2>/dev/null to the end of the command line to ensure that error messages are not seen. (Note that it will be hell debugging this if anything goes wrong; make sure you've got provision for debugging.)
The exec is a minor optimization; you could omit it with almost no difference in result. (I could devise a scheme that would probably spot the difference; it involves signalling the curl process, though — kill -9 9999 or similar, where the 9999 is the PID of the curl process — and isn't of practical significance.)
Given that the script is just one line of code that invokes another program, it would be possible to embed all that in the I4GL program. However, having an external shell script (or Perl script, or …) has merits of flexibility; you can edit it to log attempts, for example, without changing the I4GL code at all. One more file to distribute, but better flexibility — keep a separate script, even though it could all be embedded in the I4GL.
As Jonathan said "URLs didn't exist when I4GL was invented, amongst other things". What you will find is that the products that have grown to superceed Informix-4gl such as FourJs Genero will cater for new technologies and other things invented after I4GL.
Using FourJs Genero, the code below will do what you are after using the Informix 4gl syntax you are familiar with
IMPORT com
MAIN
-- Should succeed and display 1
DISPLAY validate_url("http://www.google.com")
DISPLAY validate_url("http://www.4js.com/online_documentation/fjs-fgl-manual-html/index.html#c_fgl_nf.html") -- link to some of the features added to I4GL by Genero
-- Should fail and display 0
DISPLAY validate_url("http://www.google.com/testing")
DISPLAY validate_url("http://www.google2.com")
END MAIN
FUNCTION validate_url(url)
DEFINE url STRING
DEFINE req com.HttpRequest
DEFINE resp com.HttpResponse
-- Returns TRUE if http request to a URL returns 200
TRY
LET req = com.HttpRequest.create(url)
CALL req.doRequest()
LET resp = req.getResponse()
IF resp.getStatusCode() = 200 THEN
RETURN TRUE
END IF
-- May want to handle other HTTP status codes
CATCH
-- May want to capture case if not connected to internet etc
END TRY
RETURN FALSE
END FUNCTION

"attempt to call global 'tonumber' (a nil value)" in Lua, embedded (in VLC)

I use VLC media player 1.1.9 on Ubuntu 11.04. I'm trying to experiment with lua extensions for VLC; so I've added the file test.lua in ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/extensions/, which has only these two lines:
fps="25.000"
frame_duration=1/tonumber(fps)
When I run vlc with verbose output for debugging, I get (edited to split on multiple lines:):
$ vlc --verbose 2
...
[0xa213874] lua generic warning: Error loading script
~/.local/share/vlc/lua/extensions/test.lua:
.../.local/share/vlc/lua/extensions/test.lua:2:
attempt to call global 'tonumber' (a nil value)
...
Now, as far as I know, tonumber as function is part of Lua5.1 proper (Lua 5.1 Reference Manual: tonumber) - and on my system:
$ locate --regex 'lua.*so.*' | head -4
/usr/lib/libipelua.so.7.0.10
/usr/lib/liblua5.1.so
/usr/lib/liblua5.1.so.0
/usr/lib/liblua5.1.so.0.0.0
... apparently I do have Lua 5.1 installed.
So, why do I get an error on using tonumber here - and how can I use this (and other) standard functions in a VLC lua extension properly?
Documentation is sparse for VLC Lua extensions to say the least but I did find an example in the github vlc repository here: https://github.com/videolan/vlc/blob/master/share/lua/extensions/VLSub.lua
Judging from that example it appears you need to supply some basic event functions for your addon for VLC to call into when certain events happen. Some of the obvious callback handlers I've noticed:
descriptor, this should return a table that contains fields describing your addon.
activate, this seems to get called when you activate it from view menubar.
deactivate, called when you deactivate the addon from view menubar.
plus a couple of other functions like close and input_change which you can guess what they're for.
From my brief testing done on VLC 2.0.8 under Win7 it appears VLC loads the lua extension using an empty sandbox environment. This is likely the reason you're getting nil for tonumber and I'm betting none of the other standard lua functions are accessible either when you try to perform computation at this global scope.
However, if I move that code into one of the event handling functions then all those standard functions are accessible again. For example:
function descriptor()
return
{
title = "Test Ext";
version = "0.1";
author = "";
shortdesc = "Testing Lua Extension";
capabilities = {};
description = "VLC Hello Test Addon";
}
end
function activate()
print "test activating"
local fps = tonumber "25.000"
local frame_duration = 1 / fps
print(frame_duration)
return true
end
-- ...
That prints out what you would expect in the console debug log. Now the documentation (what little there is) doesn't mention any of this but what's probably happening here is VLC is injecting the standard lua functions and vlc api table into the sandboxed environment when any of these event handlers get called. But during the extension loading phase, it is done in an empty sandbox environment which explains why all those lua function calls end up being nil when you try to use it at the outter most scope.
I recommend cloning the VLC source tree from github and then performing a grep on the C source that's embedding lua to see what VLC is really doing behind the scenes. Most of the relevant code will likely be here: https://github.com/videolan/vlc/tree/master/modules/lua
Probably some extension script installed in your system overwrites the function and the Lua interpreter instance is shared between all extension scripts, so you end up not being able to call the function if that script is called before yours.
As a quick workaround, Lua being dynamically typed, you can still do things like:
1 / "25.000"
and the string will be coerced to a number.
Alternatively, you can define a tonumber equivalent like:
string_to_num = function(s) return s + 0 end
This again relies on dynamic typing.

Run script instructions from external source in Lua

Ok, I'm wanting to know if there's a way of running scripts from an external source with Lua. Be it another file in .txt format or from pastebin, what have you, and run the code and wait for said code to finish, and then continue on with the rest of the function. I'm not quite sure at all about how it'd work, but this is basically the idea I'm going by and isn't actual code.
function runStuff()
print("checking for stuff")
run.script(derp.txt)
wait for script
if run.script == finished
continue program
elseif nil
print("looks like this script sucks.")
end
end
runStuff()
And for example what "derp.txt" contains is:
function lookFile()
if herp.txt exists then
rename herp.txt to herp.lua
else
nil
end
end
lookFile()
I'm still new to Lua so I'm coding like a moron here, but you get my picture hopefully. I'm working on a project that'll act like an installer package for repositories based from pastebin or anywhere else that'll supply raw format outputs of lua scripts and I'm going to use that idea for it to call on scripts to run externally. So when I supply a "First Time Run" version of the program, it'll call out to a lua script that'll call to another lua script and install that script, then close.
This is for minecraft, mind you. ComputerCraft made me take interest in Lua, but anyway, hopefully you got the gist of what I'm trying to figure out. Hopefully that's doable and if not, I'll just have to figure something else out.
To load and execute a Lua code fragment you can use something like this:
local http = require("socket.http")
local response, err = http.request("url to some Lua code")
if not response then error(err) end
local f, err = (loadstring or load)(response)
if not f then error(err) end
print("done with "..response)
-- make sure you read on (in)security implications of running remote code
-- f() -- call the function based on the remote code
You probably need to use sandboxing.

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