typescript-to-lua

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.

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

Example tsconfig.json

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "noImplicitAny" : true,
        "noImplicitThis" : true,
        "alwaysStrict" : true,
        "strictNullChecks": true
    },
    "luaTarget": "JIT"
}

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:

• Dota 2 Modding
• Defold Game Engine Scripting

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.