LuaRocks Wiki: Types of rocks

Anonymous users must enter captcha below.

Don't put anything here

Page Parameters

Page Name (for URL)

Page Title

Don't put anything here

Page Content

A rock is a bundle containing a specification file (called a "rockspec") and files providing Lua modules. A [[Rockspec format|rockspec]] is a Lua file contaning a 
series of assignments to variables that provide various information about the rock, such as description metadata, dependency relations and build rules. Rocks are created from rockspecs.

When packed, a rock is an archive file in ZIP format, with the .rock filename extension. When installed, a rock is unpacked into a directory in the local rocks repository.

There are several types of rocks, and when packed they are identified by their filename extensions. These are:

* '''Source rocks''' (.src.rock): these contain the rockspec and the source code for the Lua modules provided by the rock. When installing a source rock, the source code needs to be compiled.
* '''Binary rocks''' (.''system''-''arch''.rock: .linux-x86.rock, .macosx-powerpc.rock): these contain the rockspec and modules in compiled form. Modules written in Lua may be in source .lua format, but modules compiled as C dynamic libraries are compiled to their platform-specific format.   
* '''Pure-Lua rocks''' (.all.rock): these contain the rockspec and the Lua modules they provide in .lua format. These rocks are directly installable without a compilation stage and are platform-independent.

Don't put anything here

About this Edit

Minor Edit

Edit Summary

Don't put anything here