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  5. GNU Bash vs Lua

GNU Bash vs Lua

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

GNU Bash
GNU Bash
Stacks1.4K
Followers723
Votes8
Lua
Lua
Stacks2.5K
Followers1.0K
Votes180
GitHub Stars1.5K
Forks452

GNU Bash vs Lua: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown code provides a comparison between GNU Bash and Lua, highlighting the key differences between the two programming languages.

  1. Variable Declaration and Scope: In GNU Bash, variables are implicitly declared and have a global scope unless explicitly defined as local. In contrast, Lua requires explicit variable declaration and provides options for local and global scope control.

  2. Data Types: GNU Bash primarily deals with strings, with limited support for numeric operations. Lua, on the other hand, supports various data types including strings, numbers, booleans, tables, functions, and userdata.

  3. Syntax and Control Flow: Bash uses a shell scripting syntax with built-in commands and functions for tasks such as file manipulation and system management. Lua utilizes a more traditional programming syntax with constructs like loops, conditionals, and functions, making it more suitable for general-purpose programming tasks.

  4. Arrays and Tables: In Bash, arrays are implemented as strings with special delimiters. Lua provides built-in support for tables, a more versatile data structure capable of storing different data types and offering advanced features like key-value pairs and iteration.

  5. File Handling: While both languages can handle file I/O operations, GNU Bash has native support for file rediirection, allowing easy manipulation of input and output streams. Lua requires the use of its file I/O libraries to perform similar operations.

  6. Script Execution: In Bash, scripts are typically executed from the command line as shell scripts. Lua scripts, on the other hand, are usually executed within the Lua interpreter or embedded in applications that have Lua support.

In summary, GNU Bash focuses on shell scripting and system management, providing simplicity and quick command execution, while Lua offers a more comprehensive programming language with extensive data types, syntax, and control flow constructs for general-purpose programming tasks.

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Advice on GNU Bash, Lua

Gamerians
Gamerians

May 21, 2020

Needs adviceonLuaLuaPythonPythonJavaJava

I am trying to make Roblox game which requires Lua. I quite don't want to go with Lua just because other tools just might let me do more projects later on. I heard that Python is most similar to Lua, but I am still not sure which tool to use. Java, I think it will help me with many stuff later on for websites, projects, and more!

470k views470k
Comments
Justin
Justin

Open Source Program Manager at Reblaze

Aug 15, 2019

Review

If you have a file (demo.txt) that has 3 columns:

Column-1    Column-2    Column-3
Row-1a      Row-2a      Row-3a         
Row-1b      Row-2b      Row-3b
Row-1c      Row-2c      Row-3c
Row-1d      Row-2d      Row-3d
Row-1e      Row-2e      Row-3e

and you want to only view the first column of the file in your CLI, run the following:

awk {'print $1'} demo.txt

Column-1
Row-1a
Row-1b
Row-1c
Row-1d
Row-1e

If you want to print the second column of demo.txt, just replace $1 with $2

96.4k views96.4k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

GNU Bash
GNU Bash
Lua
Lua

The Bourne Again SHell is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh). It is intended to conform to the IEEE POSIX P1003.2/ISO 9945.2 Shell and Tools standard.

Lua combines simple procedural syntax with powerful data description constructs based on associative arrays and extensible semantics. Lua is dynamically typed, runs by interpreting bytecode for a register-based virtual machine, and has automatic memory management with incremental garbage collection, making it ideal for configuration, scripting, and rapid prototyping.

Command line editing; Unlimited size command history; Job Control; Shell Functions and Aliases; Indexed arrays of unlimited size; Integer arithmetic in any base from two to sixty-four
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
1.5K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
452
Stacks
1.4K
Stacks
2.5K
Followers
723
Followers
1.0K
Votes
8
Votes
180
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 3
    Powerful scripting language
  • 3
    Customizable
  • 2
    Widely adopted
  • 0
    Cross platform
Cons
  • 1
    Too Slow
Pros
  • 41
    Fast learning curve
  • 26
    Efficient memory usage
  • 26
    Very easy to embed in C programs
  • 20
    Open source
  • 19
    Good for game scripting
Cons
  • 4
    Nooby
  • 2
    Not widespread
  • 1
    D
  • 0
    Python
Integrations
Codecov
Codecov
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to GNU Bash, Lua?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

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