love.maker (automated distribution + minification)

[ivan]

Greetings folks.
Got a pretty neat tool that can save you a ton of time if you make a lot of revisions to your game.
It's an automatic .LOVE builder implemented in Lua without requiring any external binaries.

Basic API
The lib allows you to customize your build and filter files by extensions, filename and even using pattern matching!
love.maker can output anywhere which is super useful if you are using other tools (like Android's APK tool or Valve's ContentBuilder)

Code: Select all

love.maker = require("maker")
love.maker.setExtensions('lua', 'png', 'txt') -- include only the specified extensions

local build = love.maker.newBuild("C://path/to/project/folder/") -- create from source folder
build:ignore('/readme.txt') -- exclude a specific file
build:ignoreMatch('^/%.git') -- exclude based on pattern matching
build:allow('/images/exception.jpg') -- whitelist a specific file

build:save('C://path/to/output/game.love', 'DEMO') -- build the .love project file
local comment = love.maker.getComment(dest)
print(comment)

Special thanks
RamiLego4Game and his file zipping library
Minification by ReFreezed
Un-Restricted File System by Ross Grams

Limitations
* Empty directories are not included in the generated file
* Does not fuse games

https://github.com/2dengine/love.maker

[ivan]

Update:
* 150% faster thanks to FFI bitops
* 50% faster since we don't create an intermediate folder
* 15% faster after profiling Rami's code (fixed a bottleneck in CRC32)
* should be thread safe by using os.tmpname
* allows writing/reading comments inside the generated .love file

[ivan]

Moved the code to the following repo:
https://github.com/2dengine/love.maker

Has anybody managed to test this on Linux/Mac?

[ivan]

Wow, nobody found this lib useful at all? That's really surprising.
IMO a lib like this should be built into love2d by default.
Furthermore, it would be good to have CRC32 functionality in love.math too.
Up-vote my request at:
https://bitbucket.org/rude/love/issues/1514/crc32

[pgimeno]

Wow, nobody found this lib useful at all? That's really surprising.
IMO a lib like this should be built into love2d by default.

Maybe people are using it but not providing feedback?

Personally I package my programs either manually or with makefiles. I usually have more files in my project folders than those that need to be included, therefore I need to list the files to include manually.

Furthermore, it would be good to have CRC32 functionality in love.math too.
Up-vote my request at:
https://bitbucket.org/rude/love/issues/1514/crc32

I'd prefer a generic CRC class where you can enter the bit width, the polynomial, the bit direction and the initial value, and update() and finish() methods.

The correct place would probably be love.data, where love.data.hash() already resides. Unfortunately, love.data.hash() does not include update() and finish(), so maybe for consistency the CRC function shouldn't either. Or conversely, perhaps it would be nice to have a love.data.newHash() that returns an object with update() and finish() methods.

[ivan]

I usually have more files in my project folders than those that need to be included, therefore I need to list the files to include manually.

True, it's often more complicated than just zipping the entire game folder.
Using the lib above, you can filter and ignore files using pattern matching: build:ignoreMatch('^/.git') or based on extension.
Now if you wanted to include files from outside of the game folder then things get hairy.

[ivan]

Ok. I have some cool news.
love.maker can now minify and string.dump your Lua files so they take up less space and load faster!

[borr]

how should i use this? should i put lua separately?
love start onlu main.lua file

[ivan]

The easiest way is to drop the maker folder in your game folder.

Code: Select all

love.maker = require("maker.main")
local build = love.maker.newBuild()
build:ignoreMatch('^/maker') -- ignore the maker itself
build:save("dest.love", "supergame v1.0", "minify")

You can choose between "minify" and "dump". The former produces a smaller .love whereas the latter is faster.

[borr]

i created a separate script build.lua with code from your example. how to run this script?