Program to create other programs

Hi all

I was thinking about the HTTP API and what I know (as a web developer) are a plethora of potential uses. The main one, as far as I can see, is to have a turtle send a request to a server and download a bunch of programs, then automatically save them. Getting the programs is easy, but I have no idea if you can programmatically create new programs. Theoretically, it would be easy if you knew how, and then when you join a new server you could just create a small program to get other programs.

Has anyone managed to do this or know of a way it can be done?

Moved to Ask a Pro.

Do you mean creating new files? If so, then you're looking for the fs api. If not, could you explain "create new programs"?

Basically I'd make a simple script that downloads a (lua) table / file. The file would look like this:

return {
  ["TheProgramName"] = "theURLtoTheProgram",
}

..with additional entries as needed. Then, I'd use loadstring to make that into a function.

Finally, I'd call the function, get the table, iterate through it and download files using http.get and the fs API (link in above post).

Sounds like it might be easiest to just do a get for each program, and just call each one I want. That might be best anyway for if I have a large number of them and would end up with a ton of programs, with only a small number usable by/useful for any one computer.

And yes, the fs.api looks like what I was looking for. Suffice it to say that my experience with Lua is limited, so I'm still getting to grips with how it deals with things- I've only just realised that there's no distinction between a program and any other kind of file (obvious in hindsight, I know).

It sounds like this could be pretty easy to do, and a useful program to have. Thanks guys!

PointlessSpike, on 30 July 2015 - 10:20 AM said:

And yes, the fs.api looks like what I was looking for. Suffice it to say that my experience with Lua is limited

The FS api is ComputerCraft only, if you were looking for a pure Lua solution for some reason you'd want the IO api.