Codectionary / Developer documentation / Lua

Lua Conditions & Loops

Lua uses then/end for conditionals and do/end for loops. In Lua, only false and nil are falsey; zero and empty strings are truthy.

Syntax

if ready then
  print("go")
end

for i = 1, 3 do
  print(i)
end

Examples

Iterating a sequence

A small, runnable example of this syntax.

local tags = { "lua", "game", "web" }
for index, tag in ipairs(tags) do
  print(index, tag)
end

Best practices

  • Use ipairs for sequential array-like tables and pairs when you want to visit all key-value entries without ordering guarantees.
  • Keep examples small while learning, then combine the idea with a real project.

At a glance

Purpose
Lightweight scripting and embedding
File extension
.lua
Runs in
Lua interpreter or a host application
Usually used with
Host APIs and Lua modules

Specifications & further reading

Related Lua documentation

Lua if then end
Lua reference for lua if then end.Lua elseif
Lua reference for lua elseif.Lua while loops
Lua reference for lua while loops.Lua repeat until loops
Lua reference for lua repeat until loops.