TypeScriptToLua
TypeScriptToLua
A generic TypeScript to Lua transpiler. Write your code in TypeScript and publish Lua!
Large projects written in lua can become hard to maintain and make it easy to make mistakes. Writing code in TypeScript instead improves maintainability, readability and robustness, with the added bonus of good IDE support. This project is useful in any environment where Lua code is accepted, with the powerful option of simply declaring any existing API using TypeScript declaration files.
Documentation
More detailed documentation and info on writing declarations can be found on the wiki.
Changelog can be found in CHANGELOG.md
Usage Guide
Install
npm install -g typescript-to-lua
Compile Files
tstl path/to/file.ts path/to/other-file.ts
Compile Projects
tstl -p path/to/tsconfig.json
Compile project in watch mode
tstl -p path/to/tsconfig.json --watch
Example tsconfig.json
{
"compilerOptions": {
"target": "esnext",
"lib": ["esnext"],
"strict": true
},
"tstl": {
"luaTarget": "JIT"
}
}Contributing
All contributions are welcome, but please read our contribution guidelines!
Declarations
The real power of this transpiler is usage together with good declarations for the Lua API provided. Some examples of Lua interface declarations can be found here:
Sublime Text integration
This compiler works great in combination with the Sublime Text Typescript plugin (available through the package manager as TypeScript).
You can simply open your typescript project assuming a valid tsconfig.json file is present. The default TypeScript plugin will provide all functionality of a regular TypeScript project.
Setting up a custom build system
To add the option to build with the Lua transpiler instead of the regular typescript compiler, go to Tools > Build System > New Build System.... In the new sublime-build file that opens, enter the following (adjust path to tstl if not installed globally):
{
"cmd": ["tstl", "-p", "$file"],
"shell": true
}Save this in your Sublime settings as a TypeScriptToLua.sublime-build. You can now select the TypeScriptToLua build system in Tools > Build System to build using the normal hotkey (ctrl+B), or if you have multiple TypeScript projects open, you can choose your compiler before building by pressing ctrl+shift+B.