/phobos

Primary LanguageLua

Phobos

Phobos is an optimizing bytecode compiler for Lua with minor language extensions.

Safe Chaining Operators

The operators ?., ?:, ?[] and ?() to replace the common Lua idiom foo and foo.bar. These allow more efficient re-use of intermediate results in deeply nested optional objects. ?., ?: and ?[] protect an indexing operation, while ?() protects a function call, calling the function only if it exists.

Block Initializer Clauses

Modified versions of several block constructs allow defining block locals in the opening condition of the block.

if namelist = explist then ... end

do
  local namelist = explist
  if select(1,namelist) then ... end
end
while namelist = explist do ... end

do
  local namelist = explist
  while select(1,namelist) do
    ...
    namelist = explist
  end
end

Compact Expression-body Lambda

Lua's existing function syntax is already fairly compact, but for the specific case of a function which simply returns an explist it can be reduced further:

(foo,bar) => foo?[bar]