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<title>LuaSocket: Network support for the Lua language </title>
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<table summary="LuaSocket logo">
<tr><td align=center><a href="http://www.lua.org">
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<tr><td align=center valign=top>Network support for the Lua language
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<p class=bar>
<a href="index.html">home</a> &middot;
<a href="index.html#download">download</a> &middot;
<a href="installation.html">installation</a> &middot;
<a href="introduction.html">introduction</a> &middot;
<a href="reference.html">reference</a> 
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<h2 id=whatis>What is LuaSocket?</h2>

<p>
LuaSocket  is a  <a href="http://www.lua.org">Lua</a>  extension library
that is composed by two parts: a C core that provides  support for the TCP
and UDP transport layers, and a set of Lua modules that add support for
functionality commonly needed by applications that deal with the Internet. 
</p>

<p>
The core support has been  implemented so that it  is both efficient and
simple to use.  It is available to any Lua application once it has been
properly initialized by the interpreter in use. The code has been tested
and runs well on several Windows and UNIX platforms. </p>

<p>
Among the support modules, the most commonly used implement the 
<a href=smtp.html>SMTP</a>
(sending  e-mails),  
<a href=http.html>HTTP</a>
(WWW access)  and  
<a href=ftp.html>FTP</a>  
(uploading  and downloading files) client
protocols. These provide a very natural and generic interface to the
functionality defined by each protocol. 
In addition, you will find that the 
<a href=mime.html>MIME</a> (common encodings), 
<a href=url.html>URL</a> 
(anything you could possible want to do with one) and 
<a href=ltn12.html>LTN12</a> 
(filters, sinks, sources and pumps) modules can be very handy. 
</p>

<p>
The library is available under the same  
<a href="http://www.lua.org/copyright.html">
terms and conditions</a> as the Lua language, the MIT license. The idea is
that if you can use Lua in a project, you should also be able to use 
LuaSocket.
</p>

<p>
Copyright &copy; 1999-2013 Diego Nehab. All rights reserved. <br>
Author: <A href="http://www.impa.br/~diego">Diego Nehab</a>
</p>

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<h2 id=download>Download</h2>

<p>
LuaSocket version 3.0-rc1 is now available for download! 
It is compatible with  Lua&nbsp;5.1 and 5.2, and has    
been tested on Windows&nbsp;XP, Linux, and Mac OS X. Chances
are it works well on most UNIX distributions and Windows flavors.
</p>

<p>
The current version of the library can be found at
the <a href="https://github.com/diegonehab/luasocket">LuaSocket
project page</a> on GitHub. Besides the full C and Lua source code 
for the library, the distribution contains several examples, 
this user's manual and basic test procedures.
</p>

<p> Take a look at the <a
href=installation.html>installation</a> section of the
manual to find out how to properly install the library.
</p>

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<h2 id=thanks>Special thanks</h2>

<p>
This marks the first release of LuaSocket that
wholeheartedly embraces the open-source development
philosophy. After a long hiatus, Matthew Wild finally
convinced me it was time for a release including IPv6 and
Lua 5.2 support. It was more work than we anticipated.
Special thanks to Sam Roberts, Florian Zeitz, and Paul
Aurich, Liam Devine, Alexey Melnichuk, and everybody else
that has helped bring this library back to life. 
</p>

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<h2 id=new>What's New</h2>

<p>
Main changes for LuaSocket&nbsp;3.0-rc1 are IPv6 support
and Lua&nbsp;5.2 compatibility. 
</p>

<ul>
<li> Added: Compatible with Lua&nbsp;5.2 
<ul>
<li> Note that unless you define <tt>LUA_COMPAT_MODULE</tt>,
package tables will <em>not</em> be exported as globals!
</ul>
<li> Added: IPv6 support;
<ul>
<li> <tt>Socket.connect</tt> and <tt>socket.bind</tt> support IPv6 addresses;
<li> <tt>Getpeername</tt> and <tt>getsockname</tt> support
IPv6 addresses, and return the socket family as a third value;
<li> URL module updated to support IPv6 host names;
<li> New <tt>socket.tcp6</tt> and <tt>socket.udp6</tt> functions;
<li> New <tt>socket.dns.getaddrinfo</tt> and 
    <tt>socket.dns.getnameinfo</tt> functions;
</ul>
<li> Added: <tt>getoption</tt> method;
<li> Fixed: <tt>url.unescape</tt> was returning additional values;
<li> Fixed: <tt>mime.qp</tt>, <tt>mime.unqp</tt>, 
    <tt>mime.b64</tt>, and <tt>mime.unb64</tt> could
    mistaking their own stack slots for functions arguments;
<li> Fixed: Receiving zero-length datagram is now possible;
<li> Improved: Hidden all internal library symbols;
<li> Improved: Better error messages;
<li> Improved: Better documentation of socket options.
<li> Fixed: manual sample of HTTP authentication now uses correct
     "authorization" header (Alexandre Ittner);
<li> Fixed: failure on bind() was destroying the socket (Sam Roberts);
<li> Fixed: receive() returns immediatelly if prefix can satisfy
     bytes requested (M Joonas Pihlaja);
<li> Fixed: multicast didn't work on Windows, or anywhere
     else for that matter (Herbert Leuwer, Adrian Sietsma);
<li> Fixed: select() now reports an error when called with more
     sockets than FD_SETSIZE (Lorenzo Leonini);
<li> Fixed: manual links to home.html changed to index.html
(Robert Hahn);
<li> Fixed: mime.unb64() would return an empty string on results that started
     with a null character (Robert Raschke);
<li> Fixed: HTTP now automatically redirects on 303 and 307 (Jonathan Gray);
<li> Fixed: calling sleep() with negative numbers could
     block forever, wasting CPU. Now it returns immediately (MPB);
<li> Improved: FTP commands are now sent in upper case to
     help buggy servers (Anders Eurenius);
<li> Improved: known headers now sent in canonic
     capitalization to help buggy servers (Joseph Stewart);
<li> Improved: Clarified tcp:receive() in the manual (MPB);
<li> Improved: Decent makefiles (LHF).
<li> Fixed: RFC links in documentation now point to IETF (Cosmin Apreutesei).
</ul>

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<h2 id=old>Old Versions</h2>

<p>
All  previous versions  of the  LuaSocket library  can be  downloaded <a
href="http://www.impa.br/~diego/software/luasocket/old">
here</a>. Although these  versions are  no longer  supported, they  are
still available for those that have compatibility issues. 
</p>

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<a href="index.html#download">download</a> &middot;
<a href="installation.html">installation</a> &middot;
<a href="introduction.html">introduction</a> &middot;
<a href="reference.html">reference</a>
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<small>
Last modified by Diego Nehab on <br>
Tue Jun 11 18:50:23 HKT 2013
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