Garry's mod cache

Question

for starters, I've been looking around for other Lua programmers who work on Gmod on Source Engine and know what they're talking about. So if anyone knows any of this stuff, please tell me. So I've got a question regarding my Garry's mod Cache file. It's in the directory (this is an abbreviated directory) Steam/steamapps/GarrysMod/garrysmod/Cache. Inside this file are two sub folders named "lua" and "workshop" respectively. Inside are several lua files filled with a strange type of code (presumably addresses for assets used in-game) and I've noticed that during some sessions, the game will generate a lot of these files and at other times, won't generate any at all. What are these files? What are they used for? And what dictates when a new cache lua file is generated?

Answer 1

The cache in Garry's Mod houses clientside/shared Lua files that have been previously downloaded from a server. When you join a server which is using an identical Lua file to which is in your cache, it will skip downloading that specific file and instead, use it from the cache. Therefore, Lua files that aren't in your cache are downloaded when joining a server. Cached Lua files are LZMA compressed which is why you cannot directly read the files as Lua when you open it.