Compiling Lus

Compiling Lus is a straightforward process. The build produces three artifacts: the lus interpreter, the lusc bytecode compiler, and liblus (a static library for embedding).

You will need the following tools to compile the runtime:

• The Lus source code, which can be downloaded from its repository.
• A C compiler (gcc or clang recommended).
• The Meson build system.
• OpenSSL development libraries (for HTTPS support)
• c-ares development libraries (for async DNS)
• Compression libraries: zlib, zstd, brotli, and lz4 (for vector.archive)
• A threading library (pthreads; included by default on most systems)
• readline (macOS) or libedit (FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD) for the REPL

Installing Dependencies

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install openssl c-ares zstd brotli lz4

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install libssl-dev libc-ares-dev zlib1g-dev libzstd-dev libbrotli-dev liblz4-dev

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install openssl-devel c-ares-devel zlib-devel libzstd-devel brotli-devel lz4-devel

# FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD
pkg install openssl c-ares libedit zstd brotli liblz4

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S openssl c-ares zlib zstd brotli lz4

# Windows (vcpkg)
vcpkg install openssl c-ares zlib zstd brotli lz4

Building

git clone https://github.com/lus-lang/lus.git
cd lus/lus
meson setup build
meson compile -C build

The lus interpreter and lusc compiler will be placed in the build directory. The lusc compiler precompiles Lus source files to bytecode. Precompiled files load faster but are not portable across architectures.

Build types

meson setup build --buildtype=release

The default build already enables -O2 and LTO. The release buildtype additionally disables assertions via -DNDEBUG.

Verification

./build/lus -v
meson test -C build

Tests are organized into four suites: h1 (language integrity), h2 (C API), h3 (system integration), and h4 (benchmarks). You can run a specific suite with:

meson test -C build --suite h1

Installation

sudo meson install -C build

This installs the lus and lusc executables, headers, and static library to the system prefix (typically /usr/local). Alternatively, copy the binaries manually:

• On macOS and Linux, you can place them in the /usr/local/bin directory.
• On Windows, you should create a new directory for Lus and follow these instructions to add it to your system’s PATH.

Embedding Lus

The build installs the following headers: lua.h, luaconf.h, lualib.h, lauxlib.h, and lua.hpp (C++ wrapper). Use pkg-config to get the correct compiler and linker flags:

pkg-config --cflags --libs lus

Example compilation:

gcc -o myapp myapp.c $(pkg-config --cflags --libs lus) -lm -lpthread

See C API error handling in the Guide for details on using the C API.

Platform notes