[lua] How to read data from a file in Lua

I was wondering if there was a way to read data from a file or maybe just to see if it exists and return a true or false

function fileRead(Path,LineNumber)
  --..Code...
  return Data
end

You should use the I/O Library where you can find all functions at the io table and then use file:read to get the file content.

local open = io.open

local function read_file(path)
    local file = open(path, "rb") -- r read mode and b binary mode
    if not file then return nil end
    local content = file:read "*a" -- *a or *all reads the whole file
    file:close()
    return content
end

local fileContent = read_file("foo.html");
print (fileContent);

There's a I/O library available, but if it's available depends on your scripting host (assuming you've embedded lua somewhere). It's available, if you're using the command line version. The complete I/O model is most likely what you're looking for.

Just a little addition if one wants to parse a space separated text file line by line.

read_file = function (path)
local file = io.open(path, "rb") 
if not file then return nil end

local lines = {}

for line in io.lines(path) do
    local words = {}
    for word in line:gmatch("%w+") do 
        table.insert(words, word) 
    end    
  table.insert(lines, words)
end

file:close()
return lines;
end