Lua Virtual File System

Info:

A simple tool that takes all of the lua files from a folder, and compacts it into a single lua file/string. This allows for a full require system from inside a single lua file/string.

Main use cases:

Since some Lua environments are heavily sandboxed, system commands, file reading/writing, and etc are blocked at runtime. So this loopholes that by compacting an entire file structure into a single string, which can simply be pasted and ran in the environment. It has 0 dependencies, and bootloads itself.

General Flow:

• write code in your_folder
• set the load order in your_folder/load_order.lua (see example/test/load_order)
• set folder_path to your_folder inside vfs.lua (see vfs)
• run vfs_run.bat or vfs.lua in command prompt
• do whatever with the generated output

Example usage:

Let's say we had this file layout. After it's packed into a single lua file, it'll look somethiing like this:

-- generated by vfs.lua

-- output written into output/vfs_output.lua and the clipboard

-- folder_path = example\test

local chunks = {

	["init"] = "\
		print(\"init\")\
	",

	["load_order"] = "\
		return {\"init\", \"folder.init_2\"}\
		\
		-- this also works\
		--[[\
		return {\
		    [5] = \"init\",\
		    [10000] = \"folder.init_2\"\
		}\
		]]\
	",

	["folder.hello_world"] = "\
		print(\"Hello world\")\
	",

	["folder.init_2"] = "\
		print(\"init_2\")\
		\
		require(\"folder.hello_world\")\
	",

}

--- directory format is same as lua's. ex: folder.folder_2.file
function require(directory)
	-- implemenation not shown
	-- basically pulls and loads the source code from chunks[directory]
end

local load_order = require("load_order") 
local priorities = {}

for priority in pairs(load_order) do -- add all priorities
    table.insert(priorities, priority)
end

table.sort(priorities) -- sort in ascending order

for _, priority in ipairs(priorities) do -- run in order from lowest to highest
    local directory = load_order[priority]
    require(directory)
end

This is the input folder: example/test

This is the full output: output/vfs_output

Requirements:

• Lua 5.1 or Lua 5.2 (luaforwindows is fast and simple to install on Windows)
• Windows only for now