Network utilities, many of which are analogous to net utilities found in Linux.
NOTE: File descriptors are passed to (and returned by) functions as non-negative integer values.

Availability

TCP Connections

Methods to create, manage and listen for TCP connections.

listen_tcp()

Listen to TCP connections; creates Net Listen Object.

Usage

local listener = vlc.net.listen_tcp(host, port)
while true do
	local conn = listener:accept()
	if conn >= 0 do
		net.send(conn, "blabla")
		net.close(conn)
	end
end

Parameters

• host Host to listen on
• port Port to listen on

Return value

A listen object

connect_tcp()

Open a connection to the given host on a given port.

Usage

local conn = vlc.net.connect_tcp(host, port)

Parameters

• host Host to connect to
• port Port to connect to

Return value

File descriptor to accepted connection or -1 on failure

send()

Send data on an open TCP connection

Usage

local conn = vlc.net.connect_tcp(host, port)
...
vlc.net.send(conn, data[, length])

Parameters

• conn open connection
• data String containing data to send
• Optional
  • length Length of data from data to send

Return value

Integer value indicating the number of bytes sent on success; -1 on failure

recv()

Receive data from connection.

Usage

vlc.net.recv(conn[, maxlength])

Parameters

• conn open connection
• Optional
  • maxlength Integer value specifying maximum number of bytes to read from connection

Return value

String containing the data read from the TCP socket or nil if error occurred

close()

Close an open connection.

Usage

vlc.net.close(conn)

Parameters

• conn connection to be closed

Other Methods

Some extra functions, most of which are non-network or deprecated.

poll()

Polls file descriptor(s); similar to poll.
Parameter is modified to include revents (returned events) which indicate what type of I/O is available for the file descriptor.
All events refer to poll event flags.

Parameters

• fd-events Table with { fd: events } entries, where:
  • fd is a file descriptor to poll
  • events is a number that indicates the events you want to poll for (POLLIN, POLLOUT, POLLPRI)

Return value

Integer value; positive or zero on success, negative on failure

read()

Read data from a file.
NOTE: Not available on Windows.

Parameters

• fd Integer: File descriptor
• Optional
  • maxlength Integer specifying maximum length of data to be read; defaults to 1 byte

Return value

String containing the read data or nil

write()

Write data to a file.
NOTE: Not available on Windows.

Parameters

• fd File descriptor
• buffer String containing the data to be written
• Optional
  • length Number of bytes of buffer to be written; defaults to length of buffer

Return value

Integer indicating the number of bytes written to fd or -1 if write failed

url_parse()

Alias for strings.url_parse().
Deprecated since 3.0.0, kept for backwards compatibility.

stat()

Similar to stat() in POSIX C.

Parameters

• path Valid path

Return value

Table with the following fields:

• .type One of “file”, “dir”, “character device”, “block device”, “fifo”, “symbolic link”, “socket”, “unknown”
• .mode Protection mode
• .uid User Identifier of owner
• .gid Group Identifier of owner
• .size Total file size, in bytes
• .access_time Time of last access
• .modification_time Time of last modification
• .creation_time Time of creation

opendir()

List a directory’s contents

Parameters

• path String containing path to directory

Return value

List of file and/or folder names

Listen Object

The object returned by listen_tcp(); houses the following methods.

listen:accept()

Accept a TCP connection; similar to accept.
This is a blocking call, for non-blocking use listen:fds().

Return value

File descriptor for the accepted socket (non-negative integer)

listen:fds()

Get file descriptors that can be polled before use.

Return value

List of available socket file descriptors

Poll Event Flags

• POLLIN There is data to read
• POLLPRI There is some exceptional condition on the file descriptor
• POLLOUT Writing is now possible
• POLLERR Error condition (only returned in revents)
• POLLHUP Hang up (only returned in revents)
• POLLNVAL Invalid request: fd not open (only returned in revents)