Current Directory for "require"

I have not played a MUD in over 5 years, so this might be something stupid I am missing.

I have a directory that includes my world file, my external script file, and another Lua file that is being required in the script file. So, to illustrate:
C:\MUSHuser\world.MCL
C:\MUSHuser\scriptfile.lua
C:\MUSHuser\test.lua
scriptfile.lua is just one line of:
require "test"

Upon startup, I get this error:
[string "Script file"]:1: module 'test' not found

My MUSHclient is installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\MUSHclient, which I know is probably frowned upon. However, that was also the case when I was playing 5+ years ago. The directory with my world and scripts was also a copy from before. So, the only thing that should have changed is the version of MUSHclient (and the included Lua).

Why is the require not searching in the same directory of the script file that is calling it? When I edit the script to print(GetInfo(64)), it shows that the current directory is in C:\Program Files (x86)\MUSHclient. This is really strange. Is it possible that previously I had a Global Preference that initialized Lua in a different way?

Thanks in advance for any help that is provided.

You could just not do that. Putting these files outside of the MUSHclient folder standard structure (world file goes in MUSHclient/worlds, lua require files go in MUSHclient/lua, ...) can cause many things to break from violated expectations.


When you call require it isn't looking in some random place on your hard drive because Lua's require doesn't work with arbitrary relative paths by default. But you could put test.lua in MUSHclient's lua folder if you want it to be found.


I don't care what you were doing 5+ years ago. It's a bad idea to put MUSHclient in UAC protected locations like Program Files or %System Root% because MUSHclient writes files to its own directory and Microsoft doesn't like that.


Because MUSHclient doesn't add the script location to the package search path.

@Nick, having said the above, it would be possible for MUSHclient to add the script's location to package.path, yes?

Thanks for your reply!

So just to confirm, it is likely that between then and now, something changed in Lua so that it no longer looks for required libraries in the same directory as the script file?

I guess I can hardcode a package.path to point to the directory of my Lua files. Thanks again.

I would use “dofile” rather than “require” if you want to specify an absolute path (which may or may not be a good idea).

it would be possible for MUSHclient to add the script’s location to package.path

I suppose.

No, that's not what I said.


Or you can put your files in the expected locations inside the MUSHclient folder where it will always know to look. Or you can use dofile instead of require as Nick said.