Lua: returning or storing REPL/loadstring string output in a string variable

Question

The same question already asked here

Lua: Executing a string and storing the output of the command in a variable

But I want the function loadstring somehow return the result in string form that may be assigned to a string variable later to use further, what it returns is a function. Below code is an example:

ret = assert(loadstring(str_cmd))()

ret is a function:(

How can I get the REPL/loadstring output in string form?

Answer 1

If all output from str_cmd comes from calls to print, redefine print before loading str_cmd to save all output in a table. After running str_cmd, use the table in table.concat for instance.

Instead of redefining print you can provide an environment to run str_cmd in. You'll probably need to make that environment inherit from the global environment.