Feature request: bitwise operators & | ~ << >> (Lua 5.3+)

[timkrueger1993-lab]

Summary

The bitwise operators introduced in Lua 5.3 (&, |, ~ binary xor and unary not, <<, >>) are rejected by the parser:

var state = LuaState.Create();
state.Load("local a = 5 & 3", "chunk");  // chunk:1: unexpected symbol near '&'
state.Load("local a = 5 | 3", "chunk");  // chunk:1: unexpected symbol near '|'
state.Load("local a = 5 ~ 3", "chunk");  // chunk:1: unexpected symbol near '~'
state.Load("local a = 1 << 4", "chunk"); // chunk:1: unexpected symbol near <

Reproduced on 0.5.5 and 0.5.6.

As with the floor-division request, the README states Lua 5.2, so this is a feature request and effectively a concrete sub-item of #25 (Lua 5.3/5.4 support). The bitwise library (#17) covers the functional side; the operators are the remaining syntax-level gap for scripts written against the Lua 5.3/5.4 reference.

Context

We embed LuaCSharp in a server runtime (Limes) whose application authors write against the Lua 5.4 manual. Together with // (filed separately) these operators are the only 5.4 syntax gaps we have hit in practice — closing them would let 5.4-targeted scripts load unchanged even while the semantics stay 5.2 elsewhere. Happy to test prereleases.