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→Introduction
= Introduction =
As its name suggests, luaTeX [[LuaTeX]] adds lua, a programming language, to TeX, the typesetter. This allows us to program TeX in a high-level programming language. For example, consider a TeX macro that divides two numbers. Such a macro is provided by the <tt>fp</tt> package and also by <tt>pgfmath</tt> library of the <tt>TikZ</tt> package. The following comment is from the <tt>fp</tt> package
<texcode>
\def\FP@div#1#2.#3.#4\relax#5.#6.#7\relax{%
Thus, with luaTeX ordinary users can write simple macros; and, perhaps more importantly, can read and understand macros written by TeX wizards.
Since the luaTeX project started it has been actively supported by ConTeXt. <ref>Not surprising, as two of luaTeX's main developers\Dash Taco Hoekwater and Hans Hagen\Dash are also the main ConTeXt developers.</ref> These days, the various <em>How do I write such a macro</em> questions on the ConTeXt mailing list are answered by a solution that uses lua. I present a few such examples in this article. I have deliberately avoided examples about [[Fonts in LuaTeX | fonts ]] and non-Latin languages. There is already quite a bit of documentation about them. In this article, I want to highlight how to use luaTeX to write macros that require some <em>flow control</em>: randomized outputs, loops, and parsing.
= Interaction between TeX and lua =
