Tweaked awful.remote that runs REPL expressions in a sandbox, preloads the awful module, and provides print that outputs via naughty notifications

remote.lua

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Remote control module allowing usage of awesome-client.
--
-- @author Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info>, with tweaks from Rob Hoelz
-- @copyright 2009 Julien Danjou
-- @module awful.remote
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Grab environment we need
require("awful.dbus")
local load = load
local tostring = tostring
local ipairs = ipairs
local table = table
local unpack = table.unpack
local dbus = dbus
local type = type

local client_env_mt = {}
local client_env = setmetatable({}, client_env_mt)

-- lazily set up awful (otherwise we get into infinite recursion madness)
function client_env_mt:__index(key)
    client_env.awful = require 'awful'

    local naughty = require 'naughty'

    function client_env.print(...)
        local parts = { ... }

        for i = 1, #parts do
            parts[i] = tostring(parts[i])
        end

        naughty.notify {
            title = 'awesome-client',
            text  = table.concat(parts)
        }
    end

    setmetatable(client_env, {__index = _G})

    -- we've overridden the metatable with a new one that delegates to _G, so
    -- use that logic to finish the job
    return client_env[key]
end

if dbus then
    dbus.connect_signal("org.awesomewm.awful.Remote", function(data, code)
        if data.member == "Eval" then
            local f, e = load(code, '=(load)', 't', client_env)
            if not f then
                return "s", e
            end
            local results = { pcall(f) }
            if not table.remove(results, 1) then
                return "s", "Error during execution: " .. tostring(results[1])
            end
            local retvals = {}
            for _, v in ipairs(results) do
                local t = type(v)
                if t == "boolean" then
                    table.insert(retvals, "b")
                    table.insert(retvals, v)
                elseif t == "number" then
                    table.insert(retvals, "d")
                    table.insert(retvals, v)
                else
                    table.insert(retvals, "s")
                    table.insert(retvals, tostring(v))
                end
            end
            return unpack(retvals)
        end
    end)
end

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