[luatex] Allowing or switching to string indexes in Lua bytecode registers

[Hans Hagen]

On 9/5/2015 10:39 PM, Kalrish Bäakjen wrote:

> Why can't arbitrary code be byte-compiled? Is what you refer to
> related to what's mentioned in the LuaTeX Reference Manual (see
> below)?
>
>> Section 4.8.1 (LUA bytecode registers)
>> Note: The function must not contain any upvalues. Currently, functions containing upvalues can be stored (and their upvalues are set to nil), but this is an artifact of the current Lua implementation and thus subject to change.
>
> I had been wondering what the consequences of this were.

It means that you have to make sure that you initialize your code 
properly as you cannot assume upvalues to be saved for you (just like a 
normal lua run will end with forgetting all its variables, luatex will 
forget them and loading a couple of initializations/settings runtime is 
no big deal as lua is quite fast. Of course data you initialize in your 
code blob is initialized properly because the bytecode is just normal 
lua code. Only the code writer knows what is worth initializing anyway 
so saving upvalues some way would introduce issues.)

>> On the other hand a more general scheme could probably work although
>> I'd need to try building a test case to follow the details below.
>> I see the general direction you are suggesting but some of the details
>> escape me:-)
>
> I can write some code, but not today :-). If the "custom searcher"
> solution fits, I think that something at the core of LuaTeX (either
> LuaTeX itself or the LuaTeX format) would require changes, which would
> indeed not be something to decide lightly. Feel free to discuss
> further.

Nothing will change in that department i.e. the team will not change the 
loader (if only because different macro packages have different demands).

If you want a different loader you can write it in lua and hook it into 
the normal loader. Keep in mind that luatex operates in tds and 
organization of files in there is well defined and controlled by 
variables in the configuration so that different macro packages don't 
clash and also loading can be restricted.

Hans

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