Hello Contexteers!

Sometimes the necessity could arise to send data from lua to context
and answers back to lua. I tried this by using "read" and
"immediate\write" commands in context. These commands are described
in chapter 21 and 22 of Donald E. Knuth's "The TeXbook".

My question is: Do there exist better and more simple solutions?
Here is my WE which is admittedly a little bit ugly, but it works.
Appended the pdf-output:

========================================================================
\starttext

\startluacode

tex.print("Here is lua.")
tex.print(" ")
tex.print("I'm sending some picture names to Context in order to get back their sizes.")

local imageA = "2007-01-01---Intro.png"
local imageB = "2007-01-01---Neujahrsballade---1.png"
local imageC = "2007-01-01---Neujahrsballade---2.png"

local f = assert(io.open("contextin.txt", "w"))
f:write(imageA .. "\n" .. imageB .. "\n" .. imageC)
f:close()

\stopluacode

% -------------------------------------------------------------

\openin15=contextin.txt

\read15 to \zeileA
\read15 to \zeileB
\read15 to \zeileC

\closein15

\vskip\lineheight
=====================================================
\vskip\lineheight
Here is \CONTEXT\ and what I got from Lua:
\vskip\lineheight

\zeileA \\
\zeileB \\
\zeileC

\vskip\lineheight
Now I'm working ... and write my answers to a file for lua: \\

\zeileA\ width=3000pt height=2000pt \\
\zeileB\ width=1200pt height=900pt  \\
\zeileC\ width=1600pt height=1200pt \\

\immediate\openout7=contextout.txt

\immediate\write7{\zeileA\ width=3000pt height=2000pt \\}
\immediate\write7{\zeileB\ width=1200pt height=900pt  \\}
\immediate\write7{\zeileC\ width=1600pt height=1200pt \\}

\immediate\closeout7

\vskip\lineheight
=====================================================
\vskip\lineheight

% -------------------------------------------------------------

\startluacode

tex.print("Here is lua again and what I got back from Context:")
tex.print(" ")
tex.print(" ")

local f = assert(io.open("contextout.txt", "r"))
local contexts_answer = f:read("*a")
f:close()

tex.print(contexts_answer)

\stopluacode


\stoptext

========================================================================

Best regards,

Rudolf