maybe run with cffi on PUC Lua? Untested

diet-sqlite/codes.lua

@@ -1,8 +1,5 @@
---This file is generated by running the
---gencodes.lua
---script.  If you want to alter this file, it is best
---to make the changes in that script and run it again.
-local ffi = require "ffi"
+-- works with luajit ffi or https://github.com/q66/cffi-lua
+local ffi = require "diet-sqlite.ffi"
 
 return {
 SQLITE_TRANSIENT = ffi.cast('void(*)(void*)', -1);

diet-sqlite/ffi.lua

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+-- works with luajit ffi or https://github.com/q66/cffi-lua
+local ok, ffi = pcall(require, "ffi")
+if not ok then ffi = require "cffi" end
+
+return ffi

diet-sqlite/init.fnl

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 ; It is meant to be an _extremely_ thin wrapper around the SQLite API.
 
 (local sqlffi (require :diet-sqlite.sqlite3_ffi))
-(local ffi (require :ffi))
+(local ffi (require :diet-sqlite.ffi))
 (local util (require :lib.util))
 (local {: SQLITE_OK : SQLITE_INTEGER : SQLITE_FLOAT : SQLITE_NULL : SQLITE_BLOB : SQLITE_TEXT : SQLITE_TRANSIENT} (require :diet-sqlite.codes))
 

diet-sqlite/sqlite3_ffi.lua

@@ -10,8 +10,7 @@
 **
 --]]
 
-
-local ffi = require "ffi"
+local ffi = require "diet-sqlite.ffi"
 
 --[[
 	Created from this version: