rtc: A Lua repository from samyeyo

Build standalone Windows executables from your Lua scripts.

Features

Standalone tool : no Makefile, no C compiler needed
Compile from command line or using a GUI frontend
Build Windows native executable (.exe) from your Lua 5.4.6 scripts
Windows desktop or console applications
Static executables (without lua54.dll dependency)
Dynamic executables (with lua54.dll dependency)
Embed any files with your executable, even Lua binary modules with seamless loading using require()
Access embedded files seamlessly from your Lua scripts
Deploy your applications easily without the need to install Lua

Installation

Using latest release package

The easiest way to install is to download the latest binary release from the Github repository. Just add the directory where you have unpacked the release package to your Windows system PATH variable.

If you use the release package, you don't need any other dependencies to compile Lua scripts.

Build rtc

To build rtc, you will need to install the LuaRT programming framework sources before to proceed. Go to the src\ directory in the LuaRT folder and type "make rtc" in a command prompt. It should produce a "rtc.exe" and "wrtc.exe"executable.

Usage

rtc command line options

usage:	rtc.exe [-s][-c][-w][-i icon][-o output] [-lmodname] [directory] main.lua
	-s		create static executable (without LUA54.DLL dependency)
	-c		create executable for console (default)
	-w		create executable for Windows desktop
	-i icon		set executable icon (expects an .ico file)
	-o output	set executable name to 'output'
	-lmodname	link the LuaRT binary module 'modname.dll'
	directory	the content of the directory to be embedded in the executable
	main.lua   	the Lua script to be executed

The specified optional directory will then be embedded within the executable with all its content archived in the ZIP format, bundled with the generated executable. As an alternative, you can use wrtc.exe, the GUI frontend which is more usert friendly.

Warning Compiled dynamic executable depends on the provided lua54.dll library. Do not use any other library or your application will throw an error or may crash.

Accessing embedded files from your LuaRT application

To access embedded files from your LuaRT application, just use the global "embed" module. It will return a Zip instance, already open for read access, that contains the directory content provided on the command line during compilation with rtc :

-- extract all the embedded content
embed:extractall("c:/installdir/")

If no embedded content exists, "embed" will be set to a nil value. You should check that the current script is compiled embed table before using it. See the LuaRT Zip object documentation for more information.

Requiring Lua modules from embedded files

To require a LuaRT script file in the embedded files, use require with the name of the module. You can require Lua modules, and binary modules (DLL) without the need to extract first (please note that in-memory binary modules loading works only with dynamic executables and may not work for some modules).

-- require for the english.lua module, that must have been previously embedded with rtc 
local english = require "english"
print(english.hello)

samyeyo/rtc