[luatex] lua script on the run

[Luis Rivera]

Hello!

I am new to LuaTeX; so please, don't bite me!!!

I was wondering if it was possible to use some Lua code to make text
conversions on the fly. More precisely, I was thinking about setting
up a macro that swallows some text written in some ascii
transliteration scheme, but actually feeds the typesetter with the
right utf8 string, There are lua scripts that make conversions to
update files with older transliteration schemes (take mtx-babel.lua as
an example); but I was thinking about defining a command like, say,
\texperanto, which performs a conversion of its argument on the fly,
so that I may write

\texperanto{Alportu ^caron de sopiro!}

And LuaTeX actually typesets "Alportu ĉaron de sopiro!"

I foresee that there might be some penalties in trying to implement
this approach (perhaps exhausting LuaTeX's memory,  or some delays in
execution time), but that aside, I don't know if this approach is
feasible.

Cheers,

-- 
Luis Rivera
O< http://www.asciiribbon.org/ campaign