lulu

lulu is a collection of Lua utility modules and classes. It includes a full-featured Array class, an Enum class, and a variety of other utility functions and extensions. It also includes a copy of scribe, a Lua module for formatted output that gracefully handles Lua tables.

Everyone creates one of these little libraries. This one has a comprehensive long-form documentation site built using Quarto.

Available Modules

Module	Purpose
lulu.Array	A full-featured Array class for Lua.
lulu.Enum	An Enum class for Lua.
lulu.callable	Builds "anonymous" functions from strings, etc. a la Penlight.etc.
lulu.messages	Informational and error messages used throughout lulu.
lulu.scribe	Converts Lua objects to strings. Gracefully handles recursive and shared tables.
lulu.table	Lua table extensions that work on any table.
lulu.string	Lua string extensions that are added to all string objects.
lulu.xpeg	An extended lpeg module with predefined patterns and useful functions.
lulu.paths	Some rudimentary path query methods.
lulu.types	Type-checking methods.

Installation

lulu has no dependencies. Copy the lulu directory and start using it.

Released versions of lulu will be uploaded to LuaRocks, so you should be able to install the library using:

luarocks install lulu

Usage

Assuming your path allows it, you can require('lulu.lulu') and have access to all the modules:

require('lulu.lulu')
ENUM 'Suit' {
    Clubs    = { abbrev = 'C', color = 'black', icon = '♣', ordinal = 0 },
    Diamonds = { abbrev = 'D', color = 'red',   icon = '♦', ordinal = 1 },
    Hearts   = { abbrev = 'H', color = 'red',   icon = '♥', ordinal = 2 },
    Spades   = { abbrev = 'S', color = 'black', icon = '♠', ordinal = 3 }
}
scribe.putln("%T", Suit)

That will output:

Suit:
 [0] Clubs = { abbrev = "C", color = "black", icon = "♣" },
 [1] Diamonds = { abbrev = "D", color = "red", icon = "♦" },
 [2] Hearts = { abbrev = "H", color = "red", icon = "♥" },
 [3] Spades = { abbrev = "S", color = "black", icon = "♠" }

Alternatively, you can access the modules individually:

local scribe = require('lulu.scribe')
local Array  = require('lulu.Array')
local array  = Array(1, 2, 3)
array:transform("*", 10)
scribe.putln("array = %t", array)

This will output:

array = [ 10, 20, 30 ]

Documentation

lulu is fully documented here. We built the documentation site using Quarto.

Acknowledgements

This library owes a lot to Penlight and the many questions answered over the years on sites like StackOverflow and Reddit.

Contact

You can contact me by email here.

Copyright and License

Copyright (c) 2025-present Nessan Fitzmaurice. You can use this software under the MIT license.