yuin/gopher-lua

GopherLua: VM and compiler for Lua in Go

{
  "createdAt": "2015-02-15T13:23:37Z",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "description": "GopherLua: VM and compiler for Lua in Go",
  "fullName": "yuin/gopher-lua",
  "homepage": null,
  "language": "Go",
  "name": "gopher-lua",
  "pushedAt": "2026-04-01T00:54:16Z",
  "stargazersCount": 6950,
  "topics": [
    "go",
    "gopher-lua",
    "lua"
  ],
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-13T01:09:14Z",
  "url": "https://github.com/yuin/gopher-lua"
}

GopherLua: VM and compiler for Lua in Go.

GopherLua is a Lua5.1(+ goto statement in Lua5.2) VM and compiler written in Go. GopherLua has a same goal with Lua: Be a scripting language with extensible semantics . It provides Go APIs that allow you to easily embed a scripting language to your Go host programs.

[Design principle]!(#design-principle)
[How about performance?]!(#how-about-performance)
[Installation]!(#installation)
[Usage]!(#usage)
[Differences between Lua and GopherLua]!(#differences-between-lua-and-gopherlua)
[Standalone interpreter]!(#standalone-interpreter)
[How to Contribute]!(#how-to-contribute)
[Libraries for GopherLua]!(#libraries-for-gopherlua)
[Donation]!(#donation)
[License]!(#license)
[Author]!(#author)

Design principle

Be a scripting language with extensible semantics.
User-friendly Go API
- The stack based API like the one used in the original Lua implementation will cause a performance improvements in GopherLua (It will reduce memory allocations and concrete type <-> interface conversions). GopherLua API is not the stack based API. GopherLua give preference to the user-friendliness over the performance.

How about performance?

GopherLua is not fast but not too slow, I think.

GopherLua has almost equivalent ( or little bit better ) performance as Python3 on micro benchmarks.

There are some benchmarks on the wiki page .

Installation

$ go get github.com/yuin/gopher-lua

Usage

GopherLua APIs perform in much the same way as Lua, but the stack is used only for passing arguments and receiving returned values.

GopherLua supports channel operations. See “Goroutines” section.

Import a package.

import (
    "github.com/yuin/gopher-lua"
)

Run scripts in the VM.

L := lua.NewState()
defer L.Close()
if err := L.DoString(`print("hello")`); err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

L := lua.NewState()
defer L.Close()
if err := L.DoFile("hello.lua"); err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

Refer to Lua Reference Manual and Go doc for further information.

Note that elements that are not commented in Go doc equivalent to Lua Reference Manual , except GopherLua uses objects instead of Lua stack indices.

Data model

All data in a GopherLua program is an LValue . LValue is an interface type that has following methods.

String() string
Type() LValueType

Objects implement an LValue interface are

Type name	Go type	Type() value	Constants
`LNilType`	(constants)	`LTNil`	`LNil`
`LBool`	(constants)	`LTBool`	`LTrue`, `LFalse`
`LNumber`	float64	`LTNumber`	`-`
`LString`	string	`LTString`	`-`
`LFunction`	struct pointer	`LTFunction`	`-`
`LUserData`	struct pointer	`LTUserData`	`-`
`LState`	struct pointer	`LTThread`	`-`
`LTable`	struct pointer	`LTTable`	`-`
`LChannel`	chan LValue	`LTChannel`	`-`

You can test an object type in Go way(type assertion) or using a Type() value.

lv := L.Get(-1) // get the value at the top of the stack
if str, ok := lv.(lua.LString); ok {
    // lv is LString
    fmt.Println(string(str))
}
if lv.Type() != lua.LTString {
    panic("string required.")
}

lv := L.Get(-1) // get the value at the top of the stack
if tbl, ok := lv.(*lua.LTable); ok {
    // lv is LTable
    fmt.Println(L.ObjLen(tbl))
}

Note that LBool , LNumber , LString is not a pointer.

To test LNilType and LBool, You must use pre-defined constants.

lv := L.Get(-1) // get the value at the top of the stack

if lv == lua.LTrue { // correct
}

if bl, ok := lv.(lua.LBool); ok && bool(bl) { // wrong
}

In Lua, both nil and false make a condition false. LVIsFalse and LVAsBool implement this specification.

lv := L.Get(-1) // get the value at the top of the stack
if lua.LVIsFalse(lv) { // lv is nil or false
}

if lua.LVAsBool(lv) { // lv is neither nil nor false
}

Objects that based on go structs(LFunction. LUserData, LTable) have some public methods and fields. You can use these methods and fields for performance and debugging, but there are some limitations.

Metatable does not work.
No error handlings.

Callstack & Registry size

The size of an LState’s callstack controls the maximum call depth for Lua functions within a script (Go function calls do not count).

The registry of an LState implements stack storage for calling functions (both Lua and Go functions) and also for temporary variables in expressions. Its storage requirements will increase with callstack usage and also with code complexity.

Both the registry and the callstack can be set to either a fixed size or to auto size.

When you have a large number of LStates instantiated in a process, it’s worth taking the time to tune the registry and callstack options.

Registry

The registry can have an initial size, a maximum size and a step size configured on a per LState basis. This will allow the registry to grow as needed. It will not shrink again after growing.

L := lua.NewState(lua.Options{
   RegistrySize: 1024 * 20,         // this is the initial size of the registry
   RegistryMaxSize: 1024 * 80,      // this is the maximum size that the registry can grow to. If set to `0` (the default) then the registry will not auto grow
   RegistryGrowStep: 32,            // this is how much to step up the registry by each time it runs out of space. The default is `32`.
})
defer L.Close()

A registry which is too small for a given script will ultimately result in a panic. A registry which is too big will waste memory (which can be significant if many LStates are instantiated). Auto growing registries incur a small performance hit at the point they are resized but will not otherwise affect performance.

Callstack

The callstack can operate in two different modes, fixed or auto size. A fixed size callstack has the highest performance and has a fixed memory overhead. An auto sizing callstack will allocate and release callstack pages on demand which will ensure the minimum amount of memory is in use at any time. The downside is it will incur a small performance impact every time a new page of callframes is allocated. By default an LState will allocate and free callstack frames in pages of 8, so the allocation overhead is not incurred on every function call. It is very likely that the performance impact of an auto resizing callstack will be negligible for most use cases.

L := lua.NewState(lua.Options{
    CallStackSize: 120,                 // this is the maximum callstack size of this LState
    MinimizeStackMemory: true,          // Defaults to `false` if not specified. If set, the callstack will auto grow and shrink as needed up to a max of `CallStackSize`. If not set, the callstack will be fixed at `CallStackSize`.
})
defer L.Close()

Option defaults

The above examples show how to customize the callstack and registry size on a per LState basis. You can also adjust some defaults for when options are not specified by altering the values of lua.RegistrySize, lua.RegistryGrowStep and lua.CallStackSize.

An LState object that has been created by *LState#NewThread() inherits the callstack & registry size from the parent LState object.

Miscellaneous lua.NewState options

Options.SkipOpenLibs bool(default false)
- By default, GopherLua opens all built-in libraries when new LState is created.
- You can skip this behaviour by setting this to true .
- Using the various OpenXXX(L *LState) int functions you can open only those libraries that you require, for an example see below.
Options.IncludeGoStackTrace bool(default false)
- By default, GopherLua does not show Go stack traces when panics occur.
- You can get Go stack traces by setting this to true .

API

Refer to Lua Reference Manual and Go doc(LState methods) for further information.

Calling Go from Lua

func Double(L *lua.LState) int {
    lv := L.ToInt(1)             /* get argument */
    L.Push(lua.LNumber(lv * 2)) /* push result */
    return 1                     /* number of results */
}

func main() {
    L := lua.NewState()
    defer L.Close()
    L.SetGlobal("double", L.NewFunction(Double)) /* Original lua_setglobal uses stack... */
}

print(double(20)) -- > "40"

Any function registered with GopherLua is a lua.LGFunction, defined in value.go

type LGFunction func(*LState) int

Working with coroutines.

co, _ := L.NewThread() /* create a new thread */
fn := L.GetGlobal("coro").(*lua.LFunction) /* get function from lua */
for {
    st, err, values := L.Resume(co, fn)
    if st == lua.ResumeError {
        fmt.Println("yield break(error)")
        fmt.Println(err.Error())
        break
    }

    for i, lv := range values {
        fmt.Printf("%v : %v\n", i, lv)
    }

    if st == lua.ResumeOK {
        fmt.Println("yield break(ok)")
        break
    }
}

Opening a subset of builtin modules

The following demonstrates how to open a subset of the built-in modules in Lua, say for example to avoid enabling modules with access to local files or system calls.

main.go

func main() {
    L := lua.NewState(lua.Options{SkipOpenLibs: true})
    defer L.Close()
    for _, pair := range []struct {
        n string
        f lua.LGFunction
    }{
        {lua.LoadLibName, lua.OpenPackage}, // Must be first
        {lua.BaseLibName, lua.OpenBase},
        {lua.TabLibName, lua.OpenTable},
    } {
        if err := L.CallByParam(lua.P{
            Fn:      L.NewFunction(pair.f),
            NRet:    0,
            Protect: true,
        }, lua.LString(pair.n)); err != nil {
            panic(err)
        }
    }
    if err := L.DoFile("main.lua"); err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
}

Creating a module by Go

mymodule.go

package mymodule

import (
    "github.com/yuin/gopher-lua"
)

func Loader(L *lua.LState) int {
    // register functions to the table
    mod := L.SetFuncs(L.NewTable(), exports)
    // register other stuff
    L.SetField(mod, "name", lua.LString("value"))

    // returns the module
    L.Push(mod)
    return 1
}

var exports = map[string]lua.LGFunction{
    "myfunc": myfunc,
}

func myfunc(L *lua.LState) int {
    return 0
}

mymain.go

package main

import (
    "./mymodule"
    "github.com/yuin/gopher-lua"
)

func main() {
    L := lua.NewState()
    defer L.Close()
    L.PreloadModule("mymodule", mymodule.Loader)
    if err := L.DoFile("main.lua"); err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
}

main.lua

local m = require("mymodule")
m.myfunc()
print(m.name)

Calling Lua from Go

L := lua.NewState()
defer L.Close()
if err := L.DoFile("double.lua"); err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
if err := L.CallByParam(lua.P{
    Fn: L.GetGlobal("double"),
    NRet: 1,
    Protect: true,
    }, lua.LNumber(10)); err != nil {
    panic(err)
}
ret := L.Get(-1) // returned value
L.Pop(1)  // remove received value

If Protect is false, GopherLua will panic instead of returning an error value.

User-Defined types

You can extend GopherLua with new types written in Go. LUserData is provided for this purpose.

type Person struct {
    Name string
}

const luaPersonTypeName = "person"

// Registers my person type to given L.
func registerPersonType(L *lua.LState) {
    mt := L.NewTypeMetatable(luaPersonTypeName)
    L.SetGlobal("person", mt)
    // static attributes
    L.SetField(mt, "new", L.NewFunction(newPerson))
    // methods
    L.SetField(mt, "__index", L.SetFuncs(L.NewTable(), personMethods))
}

// Constructor
func newPerson(L *lua.LState) int {
    person := &Person{L.CheckString(1)}
    ud := L.NewUserData()
    ud.Value = person
    L.SetMetatable(ud, L.GetTypeMetatable(luaPersonTypeName))
    L.Push(ud)
    return 1
}

// Checks whether the first lua argument is a *LUserData with *Person and returns this *Person.
func checkPerson(L *lua.LState) *Person {
    ud := L.CheckUserData(1)
    if v, ok := ud.Value.(*Person); ok {
        return v
    }
    L.ArgError(1, "person expected")
    return nil
}

var personMethods = map[string]lua.LGFunction{
    "name": personGetSetName,
}

// Getter and setter for the Person#Name
func personGetSetName(L *lua.LState) int {
    p := checkPerson(L)
    if L.GetTop() == 2 {
        p.Name = L.CheckString(2)
        return 0
    }
    L.Push(lua.LString(p.Name))
    return 1
}

func main() {
    L := lua.NewState()
    defer L.Close()
    registerPersonType(L)
    if err := L.DoString(`
        p = person.new("Steeve")
        print(p:name()) -- "Steeve"
        p:name("Alice")
        print(p:name()) -- "Alice"
    `); err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
}

Terminating a running LState

GopherLua supports the Go Concurrency Patterns: Context .

L := lua.NewState()
defer L.Close()
ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), 1*time.Second)
defer cancel()
// set the context to our LState
L.SetContext(ctx)
err := L.DoString(`
  local clock = os.clock
  function sleep(n)  -- seconds
    local t0 = clock()
    while clock() - t0 <= n do end
  end
  sleep(3)
`)
// err.Error() contains "context deadline exceeded"

With coroutines

L := lua.NewState()
defer L.Close()
ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.Background())
L.SetContext(ctx)
defer cancel()
L.DoString(`
    function coro()
    local i = 0
    while true do
      coroutine.yield(i)
    i = i+1
    end
    return i
    end
`)
co, cocancel := L.NewThread()
defer cocancel()
fn := L.GetGlobal("coro").(*LFunction)

_, err, values := L.Resume(co, fn) // err is nil

cancel() // cancel the parent context

_, err, values = L.Resume(co, fn) // err is NOT nil : child context was canceled

Note that using a context causes performance degradation.

time ./glua-with-context.exe fib.lua
9227465
0.01s user 0.11s system 1% cpu 7.505 total

time ./glua-without-context.exe fib.lua
9227465
0.01s user 0.01s system 0% cpu 5.306 total

Calling DoFile will load a Lua script, compile it to byte code and run the byte code in a LState.

If you have multiple LStates which are all required to run the same script, you can share the byte code between them, which will save on memory. Sharing byte code is safe as it is read only and cannot be altered by lua scripts.

// CompileLua reads the passed lua file from disk and compiles it.
func CompileLua(filePath string) (*lua.FunctionProto, error) {
    file, err := os.Open(filePath)
    defer file.Close()
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    reader := bufio.NewReader(file)
    chunk, err := parse.Parse(reader, filePath)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    proto, err := lua.Compile(chunk, filePath)
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }
    return proto, nil
}

// DoCompiledFile takes a FunctionProto, as returned by CompileLua, and runs it in the LState. It is equivalent
// to calling DoFile on the LState with the original source file.
func DoCompiledFile(L *lua.LState, proto *lua.FunctionProto) error {
    lfunc := L.NewFunctionFromProto(proto)
    L.Push(lfunc)
    return L.PCall(0, lua.MultRet, nil)
}

// Example shows how to share the compiled byte code from a lua script between multiple VMs.
func Example() {
    codeToShare, err := CompileLua("mylua.lua")
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    a := lua.NewState()
    b := lua.NewState()
    c := lua.NewState()
    DoCompiledFile(a, codeToShare)
    DoCompiledFile(b, codeToShare)
    DoCompiledFile(c, codeToShare)
}

Goroutines

The LState is not goroutine-safe. It is recommended to use one LState per goroutine and communicate between goroutines by using channels.

Channels are represented by channel objects in GopherLua. And a channel table provides functions for performing channel operations.

Some objects can not be sent over channels due to having non-goroutine-safe objects inside itself.

a thread(state)
a function
an userdata
a table with a metatable

You must not send these objects from Go APIs to channels.

func receiver(ch, quit chan lua.LValue) {
    L := lua.NewState()
    defer L.Close()
    L.SetGlobal("ch", lua.LChannel(ch))
    L.SetGlobal("quit", lua.LChannel(quit))
    if err := L.DoString(`
    local exit = false
    while not exit do
      channel.select(
        {"|<-", ch, function(ok, v)
          if not ok then
            print("channel closed")
            exit = true
          else
            print("received:", v)
          end
        end},
        {"|<-", quit, function(ok, v)
            print("quit")
            exit = true
        end}
      )
    end
  `); err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
}

func sender(ch, quit chan lua.LValue) {
    L := lua.NewState()
    defer L.Close()
    L.SetGlobal("ch", lua.LChannel(ch))
    L.SetGlobal("quit", lua.LChannel(quit))
    if err := L.DoString(`
    ch:send("1")
    ch:send("2")
  `); err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    ch <- lua.LString("3")
    quit <- lua.LTrue
}

func main() {
    ch := make(chan lua.LValue)
    quit := make(chan lua.LValue)
    go receiver(ch, quit)
    go sender(ch, quit)
    time.Sleep(3 * time.Second)
}

Go API

ToChannel, CheckChannel, OptChannel are available.

Refer to Go doc(LState methods) for further information.

Lua API

channel.make([buf:int]) -> ch:channel
- Create new channel that has a buffer size of buf. By default, buf is 0.
channel.select(case:table [, case:table, case:table …]) -> {index:int, recv:any, ok}
- Same as the select statement in Go. It returns the index of the chosen case and, if that case was a receive operation, the value received and a boolean indicating whether the channel has been closed.
- case is a table that outlined below.
  - receiving: {"|<-", ch:channel [, handler:func(ok, data:any)]}
  - sending: {"<-|", ch:channel, data:any [, handler:func(data:any)]}
  - default: {"default" [, handler:func()]}

channel.select examples:

local idx, recv, ok = channel.select(
  {"|<-", ch1},
  {"|<-", ch2}
)
if not ok then
    print("closed")
elseif idx == 1 then -- received from ch1
    print(recv)
elseif idx == 2 then -- received from ch2
    print(recv)
end

channel.select(
  {"|<-", ch1, function(ok, data)
    print(ok, data)
  end},
  {"<-|", ch2, "value", function(data)
    print(data)
  end},
  {"default", function()
    print("default action")
  end}
)

channel:send(data:any)
- Send data over the channel.
channel:receive() -> ok:bool, data:any
- Receive some data over the channel.
channel:close()
- Close the channel.

The LState pool pattern

To create per-thread LState instances, You can use the sync.Pool like mechanism.

type lStatePool struct {
    m     sync.Mutex
    saved []*lua.LState
}

func (pl *lStatePool) Get() *lua.LState {
    pl.m.Lock()
    defer pl.m.Unlock()
    n := len(pl.saved)
    if n == 0 {
        return pl.New()
    }
    x := pl.saved[n-1]
    pl.saved = pl.saved[0 : n-1]
    return x
}

func (pl *lStatePool) New() *lua.LState {
    L := lua.NewState()
    // setting the L up here.
    // load scripts, set global variables, share channels, etc...
    return L
}

func (pl *lStatePool) Put(L *lua.LState) {
    pl.m.Lock()
    defer pl.m.Unlock()
    pl.saved = append(pl.saved, L)
}

func (pl *lStatePool) Shutdown() {
    for _, L := range pl.saved {
        L.Close()
    }
}

// Global LState pool
var luaPool = &lStatePool{
    saved: make([]*lua.LState, 0, 4),
}

Now, you can get per-thread LState objects from the luaPool .

func MyWorker() {
   L := luaPool.Get()
   defer luaPool.Put(L)
   /* your code here */
}

func main() {
    defer luaPool.Shutdown()
    go MyWorker()
    go MyWorker()
    /* etc... */
}

Differences between Lua and GopherLua

Goroutines

GopherLua supports channel operations.
- GopherLua has a type named channel.
- The channel table provides functions for performing channel operations.

Unsupported functions

string.dump
os.setlocale
lua_Debug.namewhat
package.loadlib
debug hooks

Miscellaneous notes

collectgarbage does not take any arguments and runs the garbage collector for the entire Go program.
file:setvbuf does not support a line buffering.
Daylight saving time is not supported.
GopherLua has a function to set an environment variable : os.setenv(name, value)
GopherLua support goto and ::label:: statement in Lua5.2.
- goto is a keyword and not a valid variable name.

Standalone interpreter

Lua has an interpreter called lua . GopherLua has an interpreter called glua .

go get github.com/yuin/gopher-lua/cmd/glua

glua has same options as lua .

How to Contribute

See Guidelines for contributors .

Libraries for GopherLua

gopher-luar : Simplifies data passing to and from gopher-lua
gluamapper : Mapping a Lua table to a Go struct
gluare : Regular expressions for gopher-lua
gluahttp : HTTP request module for gopher-lua
gopher-json : A simple JSON encoder/decoder for gopher-lua
gluayaml : Yaml parser for gopher-lua
glua-lfs : Partially implements the luafilesystem module for gopher-lua
gluaurl : A url parser/builder module for gopher-lua
gluahttpscrape : A simple HTML scraper module for gopher-lua
gluaxmlpath : An xmlpath module for gopher-lua
gmoonscript : Moonscript Compiler for the Gopher Lua VM
loguago : Zerolog wrapper for Gopher-Lua
gluabit32 : Port of Lua 5.2 bit32
gluacrypto : A native Go implementation of crypto library for the GopherLua VM.
gluasql : A native Go implementation of SQL client for the GopherLua VM.
purr : A http mock testing tool.
vadv/gopher-lua-libs : Some usefull libraries for GopherLua VM.
gluasocket : A native Go implementation of LuaSocket for the GopherLua VM.
glua-async : An async/await implement for gopher-lua.
gopherlua-debugger : A debugger for gopher-lua
gluamahonia : An encoding converter for gopher-lua
awesome-gopher-lua : Collections of awesome libraries for GopherLua.

Donation

BTC: 1NEDSyUmo4SMTDP83JJQSWi1MvQUGGNMZB

License

MIT

Author

Yusuke Inuzuka

yuin/gopher-lua

GopherLua: VM and compiler for Lua in Go.

Table of Contents

Design principle

How about performance?

Installation

Usage

Data model

Callstack & Registry size

Registry

Callstack

Option defaults

Miscellaneous lua.NewState options

API

Calling Go from Lua

Opening a subset of builtin modules

Creating a module by Go

Calling Lua from Go

User-Defined types

Terminating a running LState

Sharing Lua byte code between LStates

Goroutines

Go API

Lua API

The LState pool pattern

Differences between Lua and GopherLua

Goroutines

Unsupported functions

Miscellaneous notes

Standalone interpreter

How to Contribute

Libraries for GopherLua

Donation

License

Author