I have created a Wireshark dissector in Lua for an application over TCP. I am attempting to use zlib compression and base64 decryption. How do I actually create or call an existing c library in Lua?
The documentation I have seen just says that you can get the libraries and use either the require()
call or the luaopen_
call, but not how to actually make the program find and recognize the actual library. All of this is being done in Windows.
You can't load any existing C library, which was not created for Lua, with plain Lua. It's not trivial at least.
*.so/*.dll
must follow some specific standard, which is bluntly mentioned in programming in Lua#26.2 and lua-users wiki, code sample. Also similar question answered here.
There are two ways You could solve Your problem:
- Writing Your own Lua
zlib
library wrapper, following those standards.
- Taking some already finished solution:
- ffi
Bigger list @lua-users wiki
The same applies to base64
encoding/decoding. Only difference, there are already plain-Lua libraries for that. Code samples and couple of links @lua-users wiki.
NOTE: Lua module package managers like LuaRocks or
LuaDist MIGHT save You plenty of time.
Also, simply loading a Lua module usually consists of one line:
local zlib = require("zlib")
The module would be searched in places defined in Your Lua interpreter's luaconf.h file.
For 5.1 it's:
#if defined(_WIN32)
/*
** In Windows, any exclamation mark ('!') in the path is replaced by the
** path of the directory of the executable file of the current process.
*/
#define LUA_LDIR "!\\lua\\"
#define LUA_CDIR "!\\"
#define LUA_PATH_DEFAULT \
".\\?.lua;" LUA_LDIR"?.lua;" LUA_LDIR"?\\init.lua;" \
LUA_CDIR"?.lua;" LUA_CDIR"?\\init.lua"
#define LUA_CPATH_DEFAULT \
".\\?.dll;" LUA_CDIR"?.dll;" LUA_CDIR"loadall.dll"
#else
How do I actually create or call an existing c library in Lua?
An arbitrary library, not written for use by Lua? You generally can't.
A Lua consumable "module" must be linked against the Lua API -- the same version as the host interpreter, such as Lua5.1.dll in the root of the Wireshark directory -- and expose a C-callable function matching the lua_CFunction signature. Lua can load the library and call that function, and it's up to that function to actually expose functionality to Lua using the Lua API.
Your zlib and/or base64 libraries know nothing about Lua. If you had a Lua interpreter with a built-in FFI, or you found a FFI Lua module you could load, you could probably get this to work, but it's really more trouble than it's worth. Writing a Lua module is actually super easy, and you can tailor the interface to be more idiomatic for Lua.
I don't have zlib or a base64 C library handy, so for example's sake lets say we wanted to let our Lua script use the MessageBox
function from the user32.dll
library in Windows.
#include <windows.h>
#include "lauxlib.h"
static int luaMessageBox (lua_State* L) {
const char* message = luaL_checkstring(L,1);
MessageBox(NULL, message, "", MB_OK);
return 0;
}
int __declspec(dllexport) __cdecl luaopen_messagebox (lua_State* L) {
lua_register(L, "msgbox", luaMessageBox);
return 0;
}
To build this, we need to link against user32.dll
(contains MessageBox
) and lua5.1.dll
(contains the Lua API). You can get Lua5.1.lib
from the Wireshark source. Here's using Microsoft's compiler to produce messagebox.dll
:
cl /LD /Ilua-5.1.4/src messagebox.c user32.lib lua5.1.lib
Now your Lua scripts can write:
require "messagebox"
msgbox("Hello, World!")
Your only option is to use a library library like alien. See my answer Disabling Desktop Composition using Lua Scripting for other FFI libraries.