Lua Guides, Tutorials & Reference

Latest guides

Lua for MQTT and IoT Devices luaguides.dev/guides
Learn how to use MQTT to connect Lua applications to IoT devices with this practical guide covering pub/sub patterns, QoS levels, and real-world code examples.

intermediate
Cross-Platform Scripting with Lua luaguides.dev/guides
Write Lua scripts that run on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Covers paths, line endings, executable discovery, and platform detection.

intermediate
Dependency Management Patterns in Lua luaguides.dev/guides
Manage Lua dependencies with luarocks, submodule imports, and inline bundles. Find the right approach for your project size and deployment target.

intermediate
Event Systems and Message Passing in Lua luaguides.dev/guides
Build a simple event system in plain Lua. Covers callbacks, publish-subscribe, message queues, and integrating with game loops or OpenResty request handling.

intermediate
Logging Patterns and Frameworks in Lua luaguides.dev/guides
Add timestamps, log levels, and output to files with plain Lua. Then level up with LuaLogging or build your own structured logger.

intermediate

Name	Section	Description
`string.find`	String Methods	Search for a pattern in a Lua string and return the start and end positions. Supports Lua patterns or plain literal search via the optional plain argument.
`string.gsub`	String Methods	Replace pattern matches in a Lua string. Accepts a literal replacement, a table lookup, or a function that returns the replacement for each match.
`table.insert`	Table Methods	Insert a value into a Lua table at a given position, shifting later elements up. Without a position, table.insert appends to the array part of the table.
`setmetatable`	Core Functions	Assign a metatable to a table, enabling custom behavior for operators, indexing, and function calls.
`rawlen`	Core Functions	Get table or string length without calling the __len metamethod.
`next`	Core Functions	Traverse Lua tables in arbitrary order with next(). Returns the next key-value pair or nil when the table is empty.

Why Lua docs work best with minimal complete snippets luaguides.dev/articles
Lua documentation is easiest to learn from when examples are small, complete, and runnable without extra framework noise.

6 min read · March 12, 2026