In what version was the (...) introduced in Lua functions as arguments? - lua

This as the most simple example as I can imagine:
function NewPrint(...)
print("printed:", ...)
end
NewPrint("Hi")
Please note, I haven't actually done Lua for a while, I might have missed some syntax.

As per the Lua.org documentation , it was Lua 5.1 .
Lua 5.1 was released on 21 Feb 2006. Its main new features were a new module system, incremental garbage collection, new mechanism for varargs, new syntax for long strings and comments, mod and length operators, metatables for all types, new configuration scheme via luaconf.h, and a fully reentrant parser.

The syntax in function definition has been introduced in Lua 5.0 (manual) Lua 2.5 (thanks to Luiz for correcting me), but it required to use arg table when you wanted to access those varargs. This has been fixed in Lua 5.1, which allowed to use ... notation for definitions and access to varargs.

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Vala - Equation parsing

I am trying to learn a bit about Vala and wanted to create a Calculator to test how Gtk worked. The problem is that I coded everything around the supposition that there would be a way to parse a string that contained the required operations. Something like this:
string operation = "5+2/3*4"
I have done this with Python and it is as simple as using the compilers parser. I understand Python is math oriented, but I thought that perhaps there would be Vala library waiting for me as an answer... I haven't found it if it does exist, but as I was looking at the string documentation, I noticed this part:
/* Strings prefixed with '#' are string templates. They can evaluate
* embedded variables and expressions prefixed with '$'.
* Since Vala 0.7.8.
*/
string name = "Dave";
println (#"Good morning, $name!");
println (#"4 + 3 = $(4 + 3)");
So... I thought that maybe there was a way to make it work that way, maybe something like this:
stdout.printf(#"$(operation)")
I understand that this is not an accurate supposition as it will just substitute the variable and require a further step to actually evaluate it.
Right now the two main doubts I am having are: a) Is there a library function capable of doing this? and b) Is it possible to work out a solution using string templates?
Here's something I found that would do the work. I used the C++ libmatheval library, for this I first required a vapi file to bind it to Vala. Which I found here. There are a lot of available vapi files under the project named vala-extra-apis, and they are recognized in GNOME's Vala List of Bindings although they are not included at install.
You could parse the expression using libvala (which is part of the compiler).
The compiler creates a CodeContext and runs the Vala parser over a (or several) .vala file(s).
You could then create your own CodeVisitor decendant class that visits the necessary nodes of the parse tree and evaluates expressions.
As far as I can see there is no expression evaluator that does this, yet. That is because normally vala code is translated to C code and the C compiler then does compile time expression evaluation or the finished executable does the run time evaluation.
Python is different, because it is primarily a scripting language and has evaluation build directly into the runtime / interpreter.

How to access standard string manipulation functions in Lua?

I need some basic string operations, like sub-string, find string in string etc. I found a documentation of some standard functions for that: http://www.lua.org/manual/2.4/node22.html
But when I try it, I get an error:
input:29: attempt to call a nil value (global 'strfind')
Do I have to use require? Or are those methods contained in some object?
The link you posted is for Lua version 2.4. The latest version as of this post is Lua version 5.3. Make sure you are viewing the documentation for the version of Lua that you are using.
Lua 5.3 Reference

how can I use regexp:sh_to_awk and regexp:match in erlang v5.10.4

I have a module using regexp:sh_to_awk and regexp:match.
But when I compile it, the compiler warns me that the regexp module was removed from R15 and recommends me to use the re module instead.
I searched the erlang documentation but I can't find how to replace the two functions.
Can anyone tell me how to fix this?
Indeed, regexp module has been deprecated for a while and has now been removed, replaced by the re module.
The old regexp:match function has been replaced by the re:run functions, which add a lot of functionality, such as returning captured parts as lists or binary (The old way of returning start position and length also remains):
> re:run("Test String","[a-zA-Z]{4}",[{capture,all,list},global]).
{match,[["Test"],["Stri"]]}
Read through the re:run/3 documentation, it's worth it, just as all the other functions of the re module (like compile and replace).
The regexp:sh_to_awk has been removed. You can use the filelib:wildcard functions for matching filenames, if that was your intended use of the old regexp:sh_to_awk/1 function.

F# Fractal - a bug I can't figure out

I'm trying to make an example I've found on the net work. It's a 3D fractal in F#. Here it is: http://tomasp.net/blog/infinite-cheese.aspx. The source code is available for download at the end of the article. The article and the sample were written in 2007, so I think the code is just slightly obsolete. There is one block of code that causes error and the code won't compile:
// Returns a cube with filtered sides
let private get_cube(incl_sides) =
[ for (side,trigs) in cube
when Set.mem side incl_sides
->> trigs ]
The when keyword is underlined, and the error message goes as follows:
Unexpected keyword 'when' in expression. Expected '->' or other token.
I can't figure out what's wrong with this. In an attempt to understand the code better, I searched the langauge specs. As far as I know, there is nothing about the Set.mem function or the ->> operator. Do you have any idea what could be wrong?
Try
[for (side, trigs) in cube do
if Set.contains side incl_sides then
yield! trigs]
The language has undergone a lot of changes since that code was written. In particular, the ->> operator has been replaced by yield!, Set.mem has been renamed to the more descriptive Set.contains, and comprehensions now use if ... then instead of when.
Yes, the version of the source code that is linked from the blog post is a bit old. You can find the latest (updated) version in the F# samples project on CodePlex. I think there may be some other changes, so it is best to get the version from CodePlex. (It includes FractalSimple.fs which is simpler version and Fractal.fs which also removes cube sides that are not visible).
The project contains standard Visual Studio 2008/2010 .fsproj project. The original version on the blog was written using F# CTP (from VS 2005 times) which had a completely different Visual Studio integration and used an obsolete .fsharpp project format (before MSBUILD format existed).
The when and ->> constructs have been used as a lightweight syntax for writing queries, but are now deprecated, to keep the syntax inside comprehensions consistent with the rest of the language. As kvb points out, you can use ordinary if .. then and the only non-standard thing is yield!, which means return all elements of the given sequence.

Binding Lua to Ada in win32 (xp,vista,etc.)?

There is only one public library for binding Lua to Ada I have found (http://coreland.ath.cx/code/lua-ada), but how can it be used on a Windows platform? What do I need to use in my ada-project to get lua.ads.adb libraries defined in project-files working properly?
I tried to put lua sources in my ada-project directory befory compiling but that does nothing - GNAT raises an error like undefined reference to <c++ function>.
.
Windows doesn't seem to be on Lua-Ada's list of supported platforms. Still, the bindings ought to be somewhat portable to other Gnat platforms. You would need to get hold of a Windows Lua library (most likely a DLL) and graft the two together somehow though.
It's doable - I did something similar with Clips once. However, anyone doing this is going to need to be (or become) quite conversant with the C/C++ linker, Mingwin's support for Windows libraries (typically through DLLs), and how Ada interfaces to C linkages work.
Only by testing and testing once more I found how to bind safely Lua.
First of all is to unpack lua-ext.c from Ada-Lua package and all Lua-sources to main Ada-project directory. Then renaming lua.c to lual.c (or something equal) to eliminate error with same object-file name ('lua.ads->lua.o | lua.c->lua.o'). The last one is to turn on C-compiler in GNAT. It could be done via "Project - Edit project properties - Languages".
That's all I made to have my lua-files work with Ada-program.
P.S. To turn on all available Lua-libraries in Ada-program should be called those two procedures:
Lua.Lib.Open_Base(Lua.State_t); -- this will append to _G all main functions
Lua.Lib.Open_Libs(Lua.State_t); -- this will append math, string, package, etc. libraries

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