luajit(1)

✨ luajit — the manual page, but make it cute ✨

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about luajit(1) 💅 this is the manual page for LuaJIT, straight from the LuaJIT documentation, and by the end of this you're gonna be running circles around everyone. no cap.

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🌸 NAME 🌸

luajit — the Just-In-Time Compiler for the Lua Language. yes, that's its whole government name. it compiles. it's just in time. it's iconic. 👑

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

luajit [options]... [script [args]...]

that's the whole vibe. options first, then optionally a script, then optionally that script's args. that's it. that's the shape of it. ✨

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🌈 WEB SITE 🌈

https://luajit.org

go there. bookmark it. tell your friends. it's giving resource. 🫶

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so this is the command-line program you use to run Lua programs with LuaJIT. that's the whole job description.

LuaJIT is a just-in-time (JIT) compiler for the Lua language. the virtual machine (VM) is built on a fast interpreter combined with a trace compiler, and the way that combo just significantly improves the performance of Lua programs?? obsessed. 🔥

and here's the part that makes it lowkey a big deal: LuaJIT is API- and ABI-compatible with the VM of the standard Lua 5.1 interpreter. so when you're embedding the VM into an application, the built library can be used as a drop-in replacement. no rewrites, no drama, just swap and slay. 💅

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

one bullet per flag, bestie, we do not skip. every single one is here.

• -e chunk — run the given chunk of Lua code. instant script, no file needed. ⚡
• -l library — load the named library, literally exactly like require("library"). same energy, different spelling. 🍓
• -b ... — save or list bytecode. run it with no arguments and it'll hand you help on the options. it's helpful like that. 🙈
• -j command — perform a LuaJIT control command. (psst: an optional space after -j is allowed, so -j command and -jcommand both work.) 👑
• -O[opt] — control LuaJIT optimizations. the opt part is optional, hence the brackets. 🧚
• -i — run in interactive mode. chat with your interpreter. 💬
• -v — show the LuaJIT version. vibe check the build. ⭐
• -E — ignore environment variables. boundaries. set them. 🚫
• -- — stop processing options. everything after this is not a flag, periodt. ✋
• - — read the script from stdin instead. pipe it in, live your life. 🌊

okay so here's what happens next, and it matters: after all options are processed, the given script is run, and the arguments are passed in the global arg table. 🌸

and interactive mode? it's only entered if there's no script and no -e option given. that's the only door in. 🚪

interactive mode can be left with EOF (Ctrl-Z). that's your exit, bestie. don't get trapped in there. 😭

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✨ EXAMPLES ✨

okay now the fun part, let's actually do stuff. 💅

1.

luajit hello.lua world

prints "Hello world", assuming hello.lua contains:

print("Hello", arg[1])

look at arg[1] doing its little job. we love a global table moment. 🎀

2.

luajit -e "local x=0; for i=1,1e9 do x=x+i end; print(x)"

calculates the sum of the numbers from 1 to 1000000000. a billion iterations. and it finishes in a reasonable amount of time, too. 😌 that's the JIT working its magic, no cap. 🔥

3.

luajit -jv -e "for i=1,10 do for j=1,10 do for k=1,100 do end end end"

runs some nested loops and shows the resulting traces. trace compiler said let me cook. 👑

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

LuaJIT is Copyright © 2005-2026 Mike Pall.

LuaJIT is open source software, released under the MIT license. free, open, generous. we stan. 💜

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

• more details in the provided HTML docs, or at: https://luajit.org
• more about the Lua language can be found at: https://lua.org/docs.html

and also:

• lua(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie. this was luajit(1) from the LuaJIT documentation — and since this page has no date stamped on it, just take my word for it: it's current, it's cute, and it's yours. 💖 go compile something. mwah. 💅✨