trying to make sense of how bindings are created

lua_State contains these StkId fields (stack, stack_last, base, top)
that expand to a pointer of a struct containing a Lua value and an int.
Unclear how it's used, or how you build a stack out of it.

src/lua.c

@@ -371,7 +371,7 @@ static int pmain (lua_State *L) {
 int main (int argc, char **argv) {
   int status;
   struct Smain s;
-  lua_State *L = lua_open();  /* create state */
+  lua_State *L = luaL_newstate();
   if (L == NULL) {
     l_message(argv[0], "cannot create state: not enough memory");
     return EXIT_FAILURE;

src/lua.h

@@ -284,8 +284,6 @@ LUA_API void lua_setallocf (lua_State *L, lua_Alloc f, void *ud);
 ** compatibility macros and functions
 */
 
-#define lua_open()	luaL_newstate()
-
 #define lua_getregistry(L)	lua_pushvalue(L, LUA_REGISTRYINDEX)
 
 #define lua_getgccount(L)	lua_gc(L, LUA_GCCOUNT, 0)

src/luac.c

@@ -190,7 +190,7 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
  int i=doargs(argc,argv);
  argc-=i; argv+=i;
  if (argc<=0) usage("no input files given");
- L=lua_open();
+ L=luaL_newstate();
  if (L==NULL) fatal("not enough memory for state");
  s.argc=argc;
  s.argv=argv;