lark

Documentation

Overview

Command lark executes project tasks defined with lua scripts. The Lua interpreter included in lark in embedded and is not affected by an existing Lua installation on the host system. Furthermore, Lark isolates the lua modules available to scripts to modules in the relative directory path ./lark_modules/ to ensure portability of project tasks across developer machines.

As of the current release the embedded Lua interpreter is compliant with Lua5.1.

The lark command locates tasks defined in the ./lark.lua file or otherwise directly under the directory ./lark_tasks/. Tasks can have names (either explicitly given or otherwise inferred) or patterns. Pattern matching tasks will match a set of names defined by a regular expression.

Names are matched against available tasks with a strict precedence. Explicitly named tasks will match the same name with the highest priority. Any task with an inferred name will match the same name with the second highest priority. Pattern matching tasks have the lowest priority and will match names in the order they were defined.

Tasks can be executed by calling the lua function lark.run() in a script, using the lark subcommand "run". When given no arguments, run will execute the first named task that was defined, or a task specified by setting the "default" variable in the "lark.task" lua module.

local task = require('lark.task')
task1 = task .. function() print('task1') end
task2 = task .. function() print('task2') end
lark.run()
task.default = 'task2'
lark.run()
lark.run('task1')

The above script will print a line containing text "task1" followed by a line containing "task2" and finally a line containing "task1" again.

Command Reference

Command reference documentation is available through the "help" subcommand.

lark help

The documentation for a specific subcommand is available through the help command or by passing the subcommand the -h (or --help) flag.

lark run -h
lark help run

Lua Reference

Lua API documentation is available through the help() function in the embedded REPL.

lark repl
> help()
> help(lark)