Lunacy is a fork of Lua 5.1.5 (why 5.1? Because it's about 20% smaller than Lua 5.3 and because there’s a lot of code based on Lua 5.1: Roblox Luau, LuaJIT, Gopher Lua, Adobe Lightroom Classic, etc.) designed to be a tiny yet powerful stand alone scripting language.

This is designed to be compiled as a tiny Windows binary, but it also compiles and runs in Linux (CentOS 7 64-bit).

Lunacy is available at GitHub, Sourcehut, and Codeberg.

Lunacy has a web page.

Compiling lunacy

To compile, one needs a POSIX standard make program and a C compiler with the name gcc. If one wishes to use another C compiler, edit the file Makefile and change the line CC= gcc to use the compiler in question.

To compile on a Linux or compatible system (e.g. Cygwin) with readline support (so, when invoked from a terminal, one has arrow history), enter the src/ directory and invoke the make command as follows:

        make -f Makefile.readline

Note that the resulting binary will be GPL licensed. If this is not desired, and arrow history is wanted, Lunacy also has support for editline. To compile Lunacy with editline support, after installing editline:

	make -f Makefile.editline

To compile this on a Mingw system:

        make -f Makefile.mingw32

To compile this on another system:

	make

The code is compatible with gcc (gcc 3.4.2 and gcc 11.3.0), clang (clang 8.0.1), and will hopefully compile in other compilers, including C++ compilers, without issue.

If using another name for the Makefile, e.g. Makefile.foo (which would be invoked as make -f Makefile.foo), be sure to edit the Makefile used and change the line which sets its MAKEFILE value.

Lunacy changes from Lua 5.1

• Lunacy is compiled as a tiny (116,224 byte) Windows 32-bit binary which is (as of 2022) Windows XP and Windows 10 compatible. This binary is in the bin/ folder.
• Security fix Lunacy uses HalfSipHash-1-3 as its string hash compression function. It is also possible to use SipHash-1-3 or SipHash-2-4 as the compression function; see the section SipHash below for details.
• To make sure we don't have issues come January 19, 2038, os.clock(), os.date(), and os.difftime() have all been removed (If you want to play with dates, use a 64-bit compile of Lua so we don’t have headaches come 2038). os.time() is here (and is Y2038 compliant, both as a 32-bit and 64-bit build: The Windows build uses the Y2038 compliant “FileTime” API, and the 32-bit *NIX build gives negative timestamps post-Y2038 values), but only returns the current system time.
• math.random() uses RadioGatún[32] instead of rand() to get higher quality random numbers. math.random() works as usual, but there is now math.rand16(), which generates 16-bit random numbers (i.e. a random integer between 0 and 65,535) in a manner which allows one to recreate RadioGatún[32]’s test vectors. math.randomseed() takes a NULL-terminated string (not number) as a random seed (the seed can not have ASCII NULLs in it). If a number is given to math.randomseed(), Lua’s coercion converts it in to a string.
• The RadioGatun[32]-based math.random() routines can also be called with rg32 aliases: rg32.randomseed(), rg32.random(), and rg32.rand16(). This allows one to use Lunacy’s random number generator via a third party library in stock Lua; Lunacy-compatible libraries for stock Lua are at https://github.com/samboy/LUAlibs
• This code does not support runtime loading of dynamic libraries.
• The luafilesystem suite is built in. Not everything works, but basic directory and file traversal are present.
• bit32 libs, based on the Lua 5.2 and Lua 5.3 API, are here for bit manipulation.
• A module by Steve Donovan called spawner is here so we can have a version of Python’s old popen2 in Luancy. For users of stock Lua, this library for Lua is available at https://github.com/samboy/LUAlibs
• It is now possible to have Lunacy, when run in terminal mode, return the result of any expression which starts with a number (i.e. any character between 0 and 9). This gives Lunacy “desktop calculator” support, allowing one to easily use it to perform numeric computations.
• Fix for CVE-2014-5461

Changelog (Luancy binary only)

• 2022-12-06 Editline support added. ( can now be first character on lines to enable desktop calculator mode. Option to compile without spawner and lfs. MaraDNS’s version of Lunacy is now based on the 2022-12-06 version of Lunacy.
• 2022-11-04 Second part of HalfSiphash key is now correctly 32 bits instead of 64 bits. This does not affect how HalfSip runs, except it will now run a little faster since a 64-bit number doesn’t need to be converted in to a 32-bit one.
• 2022-10-23 lunacy.today() returns nil if time_t is 32-bit. This way, people will deal with the Y2038 issues now instead of on January 19, 2038. This does not affect the 32-bit Windows build, and it does not affect 32-bit implementations of Linux with a 64-bit time_t (Alpine Linux, etc.). This only affects the rare 32-bit Linux distribution subbornly holding on to the 32-bit time_t.
• 2022-09-14 Add lunacy.today()
• 2022-08-11 Bugfix: Make sure bit32.rrotate doesn’t ever engage in undefined behavior
• 2021-07-28 Bugfix: One line patch to fix CVE-2014-5461
• 2021-03-22 Bugfix: math.pi returns pi again.
• 2021-03-21 When run in terminal mode, if the first character in an expression is a number, we return the result of the expression. In other words, Lunacy now is a “quick and simple” desktop calculator: Type in “lunacy”, then type in a numeric math expression one wants to solve, e.g. 2 ^ 35, and Lunacy will return the answer without needing to have the line begin with =.
• 2021-03-06 Fully document lfs (luafilesystem) in Lunacy manual. Remove spawner.c *NIX compile-time warnings. Lunacy binary still at 2021-02-22.
• 2021-02-27 Documentation update for Lunacy 2021-02-22. spawner now has documentation; rg32 random number routines (also with math aliases) are now fully documented. Basic documentation for lfs with pointer to full documentation added. Lunacy code unchanged.
• 2021-02-22 rg32.runmill added to code; Lunacy date updated.
• 2021-02-21 Add rg32.randomseed, rg32.random, and rg32.rand16 aliases for math.random, math.randomseed, and math.rand16. This allows one to write code using the same random number generator in both Lunacy and stock Lua with the libs available at https://github.com/samboy/LUAlibs
• 2021-02-15 Add spawner routines that allow Lunacy to have two-way pipes (both reading and writing) with child processes.
• 2020-12-06 Restore simple os.time() (numeric *NIX timestamp) routine which uses a Y2038-compatible Windows API (filetime), full Y2038 support when time_t is 64-bit (i.e. most modern *NIX OSes), and support until around 2100 if time_t is 32-bit (when time_t is negative, we add 2^32 seconds to the time).
• 2020-08-12 Lunacy now uses HalfSipHash-1-3 for hash compression.
  While slightly slower than Lua’s default hash compressor, it protects us from hash flooding denial of service attacks.

SipHash

Lunacy, by default, uses HalfSipHash-1-3 as its hash compression algorithm. This has reasonable security, while being very fast when Lunacy is compiled as a 32-bit or 64-bit binary.

To instead compile Lunacy to use 64-bit SipHash-1-3, edit src/Makefile to add the flag -DFullSipHash, e.g.:

CFLAGS= -O3 -Wall $(MYCFLAGS) -DFullSipHash

To use 64 bit SipHash-2-4, likewise add -DSIP24:

CFLAGS= -O3 -Wall $(MYCFLAGS) -DFullSipHash -DSIP24

Why HalfSipHash-1-3 is the default

I have run a number of benchmarks with Lunacy, my fork of Lua 5.1, to see how much changing the SipHash variant used affects performance, for both 32-bit (386) and 64-bit (x86_64) binaries.

Conclusion: I will use HalfSipHash31 as the hash compression algorithm, for both 32-bit and 64-bit builds of Lunacy.

The binaries have been compiled using GCC 8.3.1, in CentOS 8, using an older Core Duo T8100 chip from 2008. The benchmark consisted of loading and processing a bunch of COVID-19 data in to large tables taking up 550 (32-bit) or 750 megs (64-bit) of memory. This real-world benchmark (it is the exact same code I use to build an entire COVID-19 tracking website) was done multiple times, to minimize speed fluctuations from outside factors, against the following setups:

• “Lunacy32”, which is a 32-bit compile of Luancy
• “Lunacy64”, a 64-bit compile of same

And the following string hash compression functions:

• “noSipHash”: Lua’s default hash compressor
• “SipHash24”: 64-bit SipHash with 2 rounds during input processing, followed by 4 rounds after input ends.
• “SipHash13”: 64-bit SipHash with 1 round during input processing, followed by 3 rounds after input ends.
• “SipHalf13”: 32-bit HalfSipHash with 1 round during input processing, followed by 3 rounds after input ends.

Here are the results, where lower numbers are better (less time needed to run the benchmark):

lunacy64-noSipHash 197.801
lunacy64-sipHash13 203.457
lunacy64-SipHalf13 203.507
lunacy64-sipHash24 210.043
lunacy32-noSipHash 240.898
lunacy32-SipHalf13 246.995
lunacy32-sipHash13 265.916
lunacy32-sipHash24 270.226

HalfSipHash-1-3 is as fast as full SipHash-1-3 on 64-bit CPUs, while being quite a bit faster for 32-bit binaries compared to 64-bit sipHash.

HalfSipHash-1-3 is only 2.5% slower on 32-bit machines (compared to Lua’s “stock” hash); it is only 2.9% slower on 64-bit machines.

In Lunacy’s use case, HalfSipHash should provide an adequate security margin; as per what its designer has to say:

HalfSipHash takes its core function from Chaskey and uses the same construction as SipHash, so it should be secure. Nonetheless it hasn't received the same amount of attention as 64-bit SipHash did. So I'm less confident about its security than about SipHash's, but it obviously inspires a lot more confidence than non-crypto hashes.

Too, HalfSipHash only has a 64-bit key, not a 128-bit key like SipHash, so only use this as a mitigation for hash-flooding attacks, where the output of the hash function is never directly shown to the caller.

See also

Some other languages based on Lua:

• https://github.com/lua/lua Official Lua Github mirror
• https://github.com/paly2/ALua One Lua variant
• https://github.com/mingodad/ljs Lua variant with C/Javascript syntax (also available: "ljs" variants of Lua 5.1, LuaJIT)
• https://github.com/esle/Bracket-ed-Lua Lua with {} loop brackets
• https://github.com/leafo/moonscript Lua with Python-like syntax (compiles to Lua)
• https://github.com/yuin/gopher-lua Lua in Go
• https://github.com/Roblox/luau Lua for Roblox
• https://github.com/NLua/NLua Lua for .net
• https://github.com/bakpakin/Fennel Lisp variant that compiles to Lua
• https://github.com/fengari-lua/fengari Javascript implementation of Lua
• https://github.com/moonsharp-devs/moonsharp C sharp Lua implementation
• https://github.com/SquidDev/urn Another Lisp variant that compiles to Lua
• https://github.com/teal-language/tl/ Strongly typed Lua variant
• https://github.com/LiXizhi/NPLRuntime Neural Parallel Language
• https://github.com/hengestone/lua-languages Another list of Lua-like languages
• https://github.com/presidentbeef/brat Semi-esoteric language which compiles to Lua
• https://github.com/kyren/luster Partial Rust implementation (I could not find a full Lua implementation in pure Rust, but there are bindings so Lua can call Rust code)
• https://github.com/dibyendumajumdar/ravi A JIT version of Lua 5.3
• https://github.com/gamesys/moonshine A now-abandoned implementation of Lua in Javascript

Other embedded languages:

• https://rune-rs.github.io/ Rune is written in Rust, instead of C
• https://github.com/marcobambini/gravity
• https://github.com/ring-lang/ring
• http://squirrel-lang.org/
• https://www.tcl-lang.org/

LuaJIT

LuaJIT is a high performance implementation of Lua 5.1.

• https://github.com/LuaJIT/LuaJIT

Since development for LuaJIT has slowed down, there are some forks of it:

• https://github.com/moonjit/moonjit/
• https://github.com/raptorjit/raptorjit