Included lua Library Functions
In addition to the standard lua libraries, the following are additional libraries built into the lua runtime interpreter to help with common epics tasks.
The ‘asyn’ Library - Documentation - This library contains functions to allow users to get and set asyn parameters and communicate over an asyn octet port. It is primarily for use as an easy debugging tool for devices that have a command-response style control scheme, or a framework to allow control of said devices.
The ‘db’ Library - Documentation - This library contains functions to allow users to generate database records like one would using the dbLoadDatabase function to load a db file. Instead, all records can be generated entirely within lua.
The ‘epics’ Library - Documentation - This library contains functions to get and set pv values, as well as operating system independent tasks, like letting a thread sleep.
The ‘iocsh’ Library - Documentation - This library provides the tools to interact with the existing epics framework for the ioc shell. It’s major use is to allow the lua shell to be able to call all the same functions as the ioc shell without having to have to change the code for those functions.
C++11 Support
As of release R3-1, the included libraries have been updated to use the luaaa lua/c++ binding library. This requires a compiler with c++11 support.
The libraries as they existed pre-R3-1 remain available for use under architectures that don’t have c++11 support. Whether the lua module uses the new or the old versions of the library is controlled by the config macro CXX11_SUPPORT. You can change this in the module’s CONFIG_SITE files.