require

An improvised re-implementation of require - because of the preposterous decision to not include it in ComputerCraft by default. Executing this program will give you a global require function, replicating the default Lua behaviour. Additionally, it can also load APIs written for os.loadAPI() by checking the "global" environment of the API.

Disadvantages of os.loadAPI()

• Import path must be absolute
• Variable name depends on filename
• API is loaded into global namespace
• Everything non-local is included, instead of a defined return value

Behaviour of require

This is just a quick overview. For more details see the Lua Reference Manual or Programming in Lua Guide

The require function takes in the module path as string (where dots represent slashes), and returns the loaded module:

local mymod = require("path.to.mymodule")

If no matching file is found, or it contains/causes errors, then require will raise an error itself and won't try to load this same module again. Otherwise, the module will be loaded and returned, and its value gets cached in package.loaded[name] until restart.

When searching a file, the following locations are checked (? denotes the resolved module path):

?
?/init
/apis/?
/apis/?/init
/rom/apis/?
/rom/apis/?/init

An init file is used to load multiple modules at once:

-- In file "myapi/init":
return {
	submodule = require "myapi.submodule",
	somefile = require "myapi.somefile"
}