Lua compile and embed in Windows

First we will build Lua source code into a static library.

Download Lua source code from here. 5.3.5 is the latest version as of this writing.

Decompress the archive file lua-5.3.5.tar.gz.

In Visual Studio 2015, click menu File - New - Project.... In the dialog, click menu Templates - Visual C++ - Empty Project. In the Name: textbox, enter the project name. In the Location: textbox, enter where to put the project. In the Solution name: textbox, enter the solution name. Click OK button to create the project.

In the Solution Explorer panel, right click the project name, click menu Properties. In the Properties dialog, click menu Configuration Properties - General. Set Target Name to lua. Set Target Extension to .lib. Set Configuration Type to Static library (.lib).

In the Solution Explorer panel, right click the project name, click menu Add... - Existing items.... Add all the files in the src directory of Lua source code to the project, excluding lua.c and luac.c.

Click menu Build - Configuration Manager.... Set Active solution configuration to Release. Set Active solution platform to x64.

Build the project.

If the build is successful, the result file is x64/Release/lua.lib.

Now we will use the static library in another project.

In Visual Studio 2015, create another Visual C++ empty project.

Create a lib directory in the project directory. Put lua.lib in it.

In the Solution Explorer panel, right click the project name, click menu Properties. In the Properties dialog, click menu Configuration Properties - C/C++ - General. Add path of Lua source code's src directory to Additional Include Directories. In the Properties dialog, click menu Configuration Properties - Linker - General. Add path of the lib directory containing lua.lib to Additional Library Directories. Click OK button.

Click menu Build - Configuration Manager.... Set Active solution configuration to Release. Set Active solution platform to x64.

Create a main.c file:

#pragma comment(lib, "lua.lib")

#include "lua.h"
#include "lualib.h"
#include "lauxlib.h"

static int sum(lua_State *L)
{
  // Get the number of arguments
  int args_count = lua_gettop(L);

  double args_sum = 0;

  int i;

  for (i = 1; i <= args_count; i++)
  {
    if (!lua_isnumber(L, i))
    {
      lua_pushstring(L, "Argument is not a number.");

      lua_error(L);
    }

    args_sum += lua_tonumber(L, i);
  }

  lua_pushnumber(L, args_sum);

  // Return the number of results
  return 1;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  lua_State* L = luaL_newstate();

  luaL_openlibs(L);

  lua_pushstring(L, "hello");

  lua_setglobal(L, "GLOBAL_VALUE");

  lua_register(L, "sum", sum);

  luaL_dostring(L, "print('To run `demo.lua`')");

  luaL_dofile(L, "demo.lua");

  lua_close(L);

  return 0;
}

Build the project.

If the build is successful, the result file is x64/Release/Demo.exe (The file name depends on your project name.).

Create a demo.lua file in the x64/Release directory:

local sum_value = sum(1, 2, 3)

print("The sum is "..sum_value)

print("GLOBAL_VALUE is "..GLOBAL_VALUE)

Run Demo.exe.

Demo.exe will run demo.lua.

We can see demo.lua is able to access the global value GLOBAL_VALUE and the sum function defined in the C program.