Lua 5.0 Reference Manual

by Roberto Ierusalimschy, Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo, Waldemar Celes

5.5 - Mathematical Functions

This library is an interface to most of the functions of the standard C math library. (Some have slightly different names.) It provides all its functions inside the table math. In addition, it registers the global __pow for the binary exponentiation operator ^, so that x^y returns x^y. The library provides the following functions:

       math.abs     math.acos    math.asin    math.atan    math.atan2
       math.ceil    math.cos     math.deg     math.exp     math.floor
       math.log     math.log10   math.max     math.min     math.mod
       math.pow     math.rad     math.sin     math.sqrt    math.tan
       math.frexp   math.ldexp   math.random  math.randomseed

plus a variable math.pi. Most of them are only interfaces to the corresponding functions in the C library. All trigonometric functions work in radians (previous versions of Lua used degrees). The functions math.deg and math.rad convert between radians and degrees.

The function math.max returns the maximum value of its numeric arguments. Similarly, math.min computes the minimum. Both can be used with 1, 2, or more arguments.

The functions math.random and math.randomseed are interfaces to the simple random generator functions rand and srand that are provided by ANSI C. (No guarantees can be given for their statistical properties.) When called without arguments, math.random returns a pseudo-random real number in the range [0,1). When called with a number n, math.random returns a pseudo-random integer in the range [1,n]. When called with two arguments, l and u, math.random returns a pseudo-random integer in the range [l,u]. The math.randomseed function sets a "seed" for the pseudo-random generator: Equal seeds produce equal sequences of numbers.