Luadata by Example: Hello Luadata

luadata is a Go library that converts Lua data files into JSON. This is especially useful for parsing game addon data like World of Warcraft SavedVariables files.

Let's start with the simplest case: a single variable assignment.

lua

playerName = "Thrall"

This Lua file assigns the string "Thrall" to a variable called playerName. luadata parses this into a JSON object where the variable name becomes a key.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "io"

    "github.com/mmobeus/luadata"
)

func main() {
    input := []byte(`playerName = "Thrall"`)
    reader, err := luadata.ToJSON(input)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    result, _ := io.ReadAll(reader)
    fmt.Println(string(result))
}

output

{
  "playerName": "Thrall"
}

You can also convert from a file on disk using FileToJSON, from a string using TextToJSON, or from any io.Reader using ReaderToJSON.

The CLI tool provides the same conversion from the command line.

bash

echo 'playerName = "Thrall"' | luadata tojson -

output

{
  "playerName": "Thrall"
}

Want more flexibility? Open the interactive converter to try any Lua input with all available options.

Multiple Variables →