Some articles describing the implementation:
Here's how to use only Lua's table implementation outside Lua.
/* tabletest.c - tested on Lua 5.1.3 */
#include "ltable.h"
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <assert.h>
/* Error handling */
void luaG_runerror (lua_State *L, const char *fmt, ...) {
va_list argp;
va_start(argp, fmt);
vfprintf(stderr, fmt, argp);
va_end(argp);
exit(1);
}
void *luaM_toobig (lua_State *L) {
luaG_runerror(L, "memory allocation error: block too big");
return NULL;
}
/* Memory allocation */
void *luaM_realloc_ (lua_State *L, void *block, size_t osize, size_t nsize) {
lua_assert((osize == 0) == (block == NULL));
if (nsize == 0) {
free(block);
block = NULL;
}
else block = realloc(block, nsize);
if (block == NULL && nsize > 0)
luaG_runerror(L, "not enough memory");
lua_assert((nsize == 0) == (block == NULL));
return block;
}
/* There is no global state (L) to link allocated tables to, so do nothing. */
void luaC_link (lua_State *L, GCObject *o, lu_byte tt) { }
void luaC_barrierback (lua_State *L, Table *t) { }
int main()
{
Table * h;
lua_State * L = NULL;
int i;
h = luaH_new (NULL, 0, 0);
/* h[5] = 10 */
setnvalue(luaH_setnum(L, h, 5), 10);
assert(luaH_getn(h) == 0);
/* h[1] = 2 */
setnvalue(luaH_setnum(L, h, 1), 2);
assert(luaH_getn(h) == 1);
/* iterate over table keys 1..10 */
for(i=1; i<=10; i++) {
const TValue * v = luaH_getnum(h, i); /* = h[i] */
double f = nvalue(v);
assert(f == ((i == 1) ? 2 : (i == 5) ? 10 : 0));
assert(v != NULL || f == 0);
printf("%d = %f\n", i, f);
}
luaH_free(L, h);
printf("done\n");
return 0;
}
Also, in lobject.c, add "#ifndef SKIP ..... #endif" around the pushstr, luaO_pushvfstring, luaO_pushfstring, and luaO_chunkid functions to avoid link errors due to extra dependencies.
Compile with
gcc -DSKIP tabletest.c ltable.c lobject.c