Module lfs

LuaFileSystem is a Lua library developed to complement the set of functions related to file systems offered by the standard Lua distribution. LuaFileSystem offers a portable way to access the underlying directory structure and file attributes.

Functions

attributes (filepath, aname) Returns a table with the file attributes corresponding to filepath (or nil followed by an error message in case of error).
chdir (path) Changes the current working directory to the given path.
Returns true in case of success or nil plus an error string.
currentdir () Returns a string with the current working directory or nil plus an error string.
dir (path) Lua iterator over the entries of a given directory.
lock (filehandle, mode, start, length) Locks a file or a part of it.
mkdir (dirname) Creates a new directory.
rmdir (dirname) Removes an existing directory.
touch (filepath, atime, mtime) Set access and modification times of a file.
unlock (filehandle, start, length) Unlocks a file or a part of it.


Functions

attributes (filepath, aname)
Returns a table with the file attributes corresponding to filepath (or nil followed by an error message in case of error). If the second optional argument is given, then only the value of the named attribute is returned (this use is equivalent to lfs.attributes(filepath).aname, but the table is not created and only one attribute is retrieved from the O.S.). The attributes are described as follows; attribute mode is a string, all the others are numbers, and the time related attributes use the same time reference of os.time.

Parameters

  • filepath:
  • aname:
chdir (path)
Changes the current working directory to the given path.
Returns true in case of success or nil plus an error string.

Parameters

  • path:
currentdir ()
Returns a string with the current working directory or nil plus an error string.
dir (path)
Lua iterator over the entries of a given directory. Each time the iterator is called it returns a string with an entry of the directory; nil is returned when there is no more entries. Raises an error if path is not a directory.

Parameters

  • path:
lock (filehandle, mode, start, length)
Locks a file or a part of it. This function works on open files; the file handle should be specified as the first argument. The string mode could be either r (for a read/shared lock) or w (for a write/exclusive lock). The optional arguments start and length can be used to specify a starting point and its length; both should be numbers.
Returns true if the operation was successful; in case of error, it returns nil plus an error string.

Parameters

  • filehandle:
  • mode:
  • start:
  • length:
mkdir (dirname)
Creates a new directory. The argument is the name of the new directory.
Returns true if the operation was successful; in case of error, it returns nil plus an error string.

Parameters

  • dirname:
rmdir (dirname)
Removes an existing directory. The argument is the name of the directory.
Returns true if the operation was successful; in case of error, it returns nil plus an error string.

Parameters

  • dirname:
touch (filepath, atime, mtime)
Set access and modification times of a file. This function is a bind to utime function. The first argument is the filename, the second argument (atime) is the access time, and the third argument (mtime) is the modification time. Both times are provided in seconds (which should be generated with Lua standard function os.date). If the modification time is omitted, the access time provided is used; if both times are omitted, the current time is used.
Returns true if the operation was successful; in case of error, it returns nil plus an error string.

Parameters

  • filepath:
  • atime:
  • mtime:
unlock (filehandle, start, length)
Unlocks a file or a part of it. This function works on open files; the file handle should be specified as the first argument. The optional arguments start and length can be used to specify a starting point and its length; both should be numbers.
Returns true if the operation was successful; in case of error, it returns nil plus an error string.

Parameters

  • filehandle:
  • start:
  • length:

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