LuaVela Compiler Support

Introduction

Note

This page originates from the LuaJIT 2.0 NYI reference.

All aspects of Lua are implemented in interpreter, but not all of them are implemented in JIT compiler. This page serves as a quick reference to identify whether certain things are compiled or not.

It’s not a stated goal to compile everything, since the interpreter is fast enough for many tasks. And speed doesn’t matter for anything that’s done only a couple of times during the runtime of a program. E.g. it would be absolutely pointless to compile require() or module() (in fact, these should eventually be rewritten as plain Lua functions).

However, the number of JIT-compiled cases will grow over time, based on demand and user feedback.

The following tables provide an indication whether a feature is JIT-compiled or not:

  • yes: Always JIT-compiled.
  • partial: May be JIT-compiled, depending on the circumstances. Otherwise will fall back to the interpreter.
  • no: Not JIT-compiled (yet), will always fall back to the interpreter.
  • never: Ditto. Will not be JIT-compiled, even in future versions.

Bytecode

Almost all bytecodes are compiled, except for these:

Bytecode Compiled? Remarks
CALLT partial Tailcall. Some tailcalls to frames lower than the starting frame of the trace are not compiled.
CAT partial Concatenation operator ... Compiled with -Ojitcat. __concat metamethod is not compiled.
FNEW no Create closure.
FUNC* partial Call built-in function. See below.
ISNEXT yes Check for next() loop optimization. Compiled with -Ojitpairs enabled (since 0.22).
ITERN partial Optimized call to next() in a loop. Compiled with -Ojitpairs enabled except for the last iteration (since 0.22).
RET* partial Return from function. Returns to C frames and some returns to frames lower than the starting frame of the trace are not compiled.
TSETM no Initialize table with multiple return values. Compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.
UCLO no Close upvalues.
VARG partial Vararg operator .... Multi-result VARG is only compiled when used with select().

Notes:

  • Table accesses to mixed dense/sparse tables are not compiled.
  • Bytecode execution that would cause an error in the interpreter is never compiled.

Libraries

The following tables list whether or not calls to the various built-in library functions will get compiled. This may depend on the arguments passed (esp. their types) and the exact circumstances of the call.

Base Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
assert yes  
collectgarbage no  
dofile never  
error never  
gcinfo no  
getfenv partial Only getfenv(0) is compiled.
getmetatable yes  
ipairs yes  
load never  
loadfile never  
loadstring never  
module never  
newproxy never  
next partial Compiled with -Ojitpairs except for the case when the last element is passed as a second arg (since 0.22).
pairs yes Compiled with -Ojitpairs (since 0.22).
pcall yes  
print no  
rawequal yes  
rawget yes  
rawlen yes  
rawset yes  
require never  
select partial Only compiled when the first argument is a constant.
setfenv no  
setmetatable yes  
tonumber partial Won’t compile for bases other than 10, other exceptions apply.
tostring partial Only compiled for strings, numbers, booleans, nil, and values with a __tostring metamethod.
type yes  
unpack no  
xpcall yes  

String Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
string.byte yes  
string.char no Compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.
string.dump never  
string.find partial Compiled for plain string searches (no patterns) with -Ojitstr (since 0.20).
string.format partial Compiled for non-%p and non-string arguments for %s.
string.gmatch no  
string.gsub no  
string.len yes  
string.lower yes Compiled with -Ojitstr (since 0.20).
string.match no  
string.rep no Compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.
string.reverse no Compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.
string.sub yes  
string.upper yes Compiled with -Ojitstr (since 0.20).

Table Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
table.concat yes Compiled with -Ojittabcat (since 0.20).
table.foreach never Deprecated in Lua 5.1. Use pairs() instead.
table.foreachi never Deprecated in Lua 5.1. Use ipairs() instead, which is compiled.
table.getn yes  
table.insert partial Only when pushing.
table.maxn no  
table.pack no  
table.remove partial Only when popping; compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.
table.sort no  
table.unpack no  

Math Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
math.abs yes  
math.acos yes Since 0.23.
math.asin yes Since 0.23.
math.atan yes Since 0.23.
math.atan2 yes Since 0.23.
math.ceil yes  
math.cos yes  
math.cosh yes Since 0.23.
math.deg yes  
math.exp yes  
math.floor yes  
math.fmod no  
math.frexp no  
math.huge yes  
math.ldexp yes  
math.log yes  
math.log10 yes  
math.max yes  
math.min yes  
math.mod no Same as math.fmod.
math.modf no  
math.pi yes  
math.pow yes  
math.rad yes  
math.random yes  
math.randomseed no  
math.sin yes  
math.sinh yes Since 0.23.
math.sqrt yes  
math.tan yes  
math.tanh yes Since 0.23.

IO Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
io.close no  
io.flush no  
io.input no  
io.lines no  
io.open no  
io.output no  
io.popen no  
io.read no  
io.tmpfile no  
io.type no  
io.write no  

Bit Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
bit.arshift yes  
bit.band yes  
bit.bnot yes  
bit.bor yes  
bit.bswap yes  
bit.bxor yes  
bit.lshift yes  
bit.rol yes  
bit.ror yes  
bit.rshift yes  
bit.tobit yes  
bit.tohex no Compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.

FFI Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
ffi.alignof yes  
ffi.abi yes Since 0.22.
ffi.cast partial Same restrictions as ffi.new (casting is a form of cdata creation).
ffi.cdef never  
ffi.copy yes  
ffi.errno partial Not when setting a new value.
ffi.fill yes  
ffi.gc partial Not when clearing a finalizer. Compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.
ffi.istype yes  
ffi.load never  
ffi.metatype never  
ffi.new partial 2.0: Not for VLA/VLS, > 8 byte alignment or > 128 bytes.
ffi.offsetof yes  
ffi.sizeof partial Not for VLA/VLS types (see below).
ffi.string yes  
ffi.typeof partial Only for cdata arguments. Never for cdecl strings.

Coroutine Library

No functions are compiled.

OS Library

No functions are compiled.

Package Library

No functions are compiled.

Debug Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
debug.getmetatable no Compiled in LuaJIT 2.1.
debug.* no/never Unlikely to change.

JIT Library

No functions are compiled.

uJIT Library

Function Compiled? Remarks
ujit.coverage.pause never  
ujit.coverage.start never  
ujit.coverage.stop never  
ujit.coverage.unpause never  
ujit.debug.gettableinfo never  
ujit.dump.bc never  
ujit.dump.bcins never  
ujit.dump.mcode never  
ujit.dump.stack never  
ujit.dump.start never  
ujit.dump.stop never  
ujit.dump.trace never  
ujit.getmetrics no  
ujit.immutable yes Since 0.18.
ujit.iprof.start no  
ujit.iprof.stop no  
ujit.math.isfinite yes  
ujit.math.isinf yes  
ujit.math.isnan yes  
ujit.math.isninf yes  
ujit.math.ispinf yes  
ujit.math.nan yes  
ujit.memprof.start never  
ujit.memprof.stop never  
ujit.profile.available never  
ujit.profile.init never  
ujit.profile.start never  
ujit.profile.stop never  
ujit.profile.terminate never  
ujit.seal no  
ujit.string.split no  
ujit.string.trim yes  
ujit.table.keys yes Since 0.20, via IR_CALLL.
ujit.table.rindex partial Since 0.23, compiles for tables without metatables (including nested lookups).
ujit.table.shallowcopy yes Since 0.20, via IR_TDUP.
ujit.table.size yes Since 0.22, via IR_CALLL.
ujit.table.toset yes Since 0.20, via IR_CALLL.
ujit.table.values yes Since 0.20, via IR_CALLL.
ujit.usesfenv no