LuaSocket is a Lua extension library that is composed by two parts: a C core that provides support for the TCP and UDP transport layers, and a set of Lua modules that add support for functionality commonly needed by applications that deal with the Internet.

Among the supported modules, the most commonly used implement the SMTP (sending e-mails), HTTP (WWW access) and FTP (uploading and downloading files) client protocols. These provide a very natural and generic interface to the functionality defined by each protocol. In addition, you will find that the MIME (common encodings), URL (anything you could possible want to do with one) and LTN12 (filters, sinks, sources and pumps) modules can be very handy.