4 libffi-3.0.13 was released on March 16, 2013. Check the libffi web
5 page for updates: <URL:http://sourceware.org/libffi/>.
11 Compilers for high level languages generate code that follow certain
12 conventions. These conventions are necessary, in part, for separate
13 compilation to work. One such convention is the "calling
14 convention". The "calling convention" is essentially a set of
15 assumptions made by the compiler about where function arguments will
16 be found on entry to a function. A "calling convention" also specifies
17 where the return value for a function is found.
19 Some programs may not know at the time of compilation what arguments
20 are to be passed to a function. For instance, an interpreter may be
21 told at run-time about the number and types of arguments used to call
22 a given function. Libffi can be used in such programs to provide a
23 bridge from the interpreter program to compiled code.
25 The libffi library provides a portable, high level programming
26 interface to various calling conventions. This allows a programmer to
27 call any function specified by a call interface description at run
30 FFI stands for Foreign Function Interface. A foreign function
31 interface is the popular name for the interface that allows code
32 written in one language to call code written in another language. The
33 libffi library really only provides the lowest, machine dependent
34 layer of a fully featured foreign function interface. A layer must
35 exist above libffi that handles type conversions for values passed
36 between the two languages.
42 Libffi has been ported to many different platforms.
43 For specific configuration details and testing status, please
44 refer to the wiki page here:
46 http://www.moxielogic.org/wiki/index.php?title=Libffi_3.0.12
48 At the time of release, the following basic configurations have been
51 |-----------------+------------------+-------------------------|
52 | Architecture | Operating System | Compiler |
53 |-----------------+------------------+-------------------------|
54 | AArch64 | Linux | GCC |
55 | Alpha | Linux | GCC |
56 | Alpha | Tru64 | GCC |
59 | AVR32 | Linux | GCC |
60 | Blackfin | uClinux | GCC |
62 | IA-64 | Linux | GCC |
63 | M68K | FreeMiNT | GCC |
64 | M68K | Linux | GCC |
65 | M68K | RTEMS | GCC |
66 | Meta | Linux | GCC |
67 | MicroBlaze | Linux | GCC |
69 | MIPS | Linux | GCC |
70 | MIPS | RTEMS | GCC |
71 | MIPS64 | Linux | GCC |
72 | Moxie | Bare metal | GCC
73 | PowerPC 32-bit | AIX | IBM XL C |
74 | PowerPC 64-bit | AIX | IBM XL C |
75 | PowerPC | AMIGA | GCC |
76 | PowerPC | Linux | GCC |
77 | PowerPC | Mac OSX | GCC |
78 | PowerPC | FreeBSD | GCC |
79 | PowerPC 64-bit | FreeBSD | GCC |
80 | PowerPC 64-bit | Linux | GCC |
81 | S390 | Linux | GCC |
82 | S390X | Linux | GCC |
83 | SPARC | Linux | GCC |
84 | SPARC | Solaris | GCC |
85 | SPARC | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
86 | SPARC64 | Linux | GCC |
87 | SPARC64 | FreeBSD | GCC |
88 | SPARC64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
89 | TILE-Gx/TILEPro | Linux | GCC |
90 | X86 | FreeBSD | GCC |
91 | X86 | GNU HURD | GCC |
92 | X86 | Interix | GCC |
93 | X86 | kFreeBSD | GCC |
95 | X86 | Mac OSX | GCC |
96 | X86 | OpenBSD | GCC |
98 | X86 | Solaris | GCC |
99 | X86 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
100 | X86 | Windows/Cygwin | GCC |
101 | X86 | Windows/MingW | GCC |
102 | X86-64 | FreeBSD | GCC |
103 | X86-64 | Linux | GCC |
104 | X86-64 | Linux/x32 | GCC |
105 | X86-64 | OpenBSD | GCC |
106 | X86-64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
107 | X86-64 | Windows/MingW | GCC |
108 | Xtensa | Linux | GCC |
109 |-----------------+------------------+-------------------------|
111 Please send additional platform test results to
112 libffi-discuss@sourceware.org and feel free to update the wiki page
118 First you must configure the distribution for your particular
119 system. Go to the directory you wish to build libffi in and run the
120 "configure" program found in the root directory of the libffi source
123 You may want to tell configure where to install the libffi library and
124 header files. To do that, use the --prefix configure switch. Libffi
125 will install under /usr/local by default.
127 If you want to enable extra run-time debugging checks use the the
128 --enable-debug configure switch. This is useful when your program dies
129 mysteriously while using libffi.
131 Another useful configure switch is --enable-purify-safety. Using this
132 will add some extra code which will suppress certain warnings when you
133 are using Purify with libffi. Only use this switch when using
134 Purify, as it will slow down the library.
136 It's also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with
137 Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler. In this case, use the msvcc.sh
138 wrapper script during configuration like so:
140 path/to/configure CC=path/to/msvcc.sh LD=link CPP=\"cl -nologo -EP\"
142 For 64-bit Windows builds, use CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64".
143 You may also need to specify --build appropriately. When building with MSVC
144 under a MingW environment, you may need to remove the line in configure
145 that sets 'fix_srcfile_path' to a 'cygpath' command. ('cygpath' is not
146 present in MingW, and is not required when using MingW-style paths.)
148 For iOS builds, the 'libffi.xcodeproj' Xcode project is available.
150 Configure has many other options. Use "configure --help" to see them all.
152 Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using
153 GNU make. You can ftp GNU make from ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/make .
155 To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make check".
156 This will require that you have DejaGNU installed.
158 To install the library and header files, type "make install".
164 See the ChangeLog files for details.
168 Add missing Moxie bits.
169 Fix stack alignment bug on 32-bit x86.
170 Build fix for m68000 targets.
171 Build fix for soft-float Power targets.
176 Add Blackfin support.
177 Add TILE-Gx/TILEPro support.
178 Add MicroBlaze support.
180 Add support for PaX enabled kernels with MPROTECT.
181 Add support for native vendor compilers on
183 Work around LLVM/GCC interoperability issue on x86_64.
187 Add Amiga newer MacOS support.
188 Add support for variadic functions (ffi_prep_cif_var).
189 Add Linux/x32 support.
190 Add thiscall, fastcall and MSVC cdecl support on Windows.
191 Add Amiga and newer MacOS support.
192 Add m68k FreeMiNT support.
193 Integration with iOS' xcode build tools.
194 Fix Octeon and MC68881 support.
195 Fix code pessimizations.
198 Add support for Apple's iOS.
199 Add support for ARM VFP ABI.
200 Add RTEMS support for MIPS and M68K.
201 Fix instruction cache clearing problems on
203 Fix the N64 build on mips-sgi-irix6.5.
204 Enable builds with Microsoft's compiler.
205 Enable x86 builds with Oracle's Solaris compiler.
206 Fix support for calling code compiled with Oracle's Sparc
208 Testsuite fixes for Tru64 Unix.
209 Additional platform support.
212 Add AVR32 and win64 ports. Add ARM softfp support.
213 Many fixes for AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD.
214 Several PowerPC and x86-64 bug fixes.
215 Build DLL for windows.
218 Add *BSD, BeOS, and PA-Linux support.
222 (thanks to Andreas Tobler)
225 Fix for closures on sh.
226 Mark the sh/sh64 stack as non-executable.
227 (both thanks to Kaz Kojima)
231 Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users.
235 Fix x86 OpenBSD configury.
238 Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and
239 x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Björn König and Andreas Tobler.
240 Clean up test instruction in README.
243 Improved x86 FreeBSD support.
244 Thanks to Björn König.
247 Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS.
248 Thanks to David Daney.
251 Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project.
252 Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat.
257 Raffaele Sena produces ARM port.
260 Fixed x86 long double and long long return support.
261 m68k bug fixes from Andreas Schwab.
262 Patch for DU assembler compatibility for the Alpha from Richard
266 Bug fixes and MIPS configuration changes.
269 Bug fixes and m68k port from Andreas Schwab. PowerPC port from
270 Geoffrey Keating. Various bug x86, Sparc and MIPS bug fixes.
273 Richard Henderson produces Alpha port.
276 Fixed an n32 ABI bug. New libtool, auto* support.
279 libtool is now used to generate shared and static libraries.
280 Fixed a minor portability problem reported by Russ McManus
284 Added --enable-purify-safety to keep Purify from complaining
285 about certain low level code.
286 Sparc fix for calling functions with < 6 args.
290 Added missing ffi_type_void, needed for supporting void return
291 types. Fixed test case for non MIPS machines. Cygnus Support
292 is now Cygnus Solutions.
295 Added notes about GNU make.
298 Added configuration fix for non GNU compilers.
301 Added --enable-debug configure switch. Clean-ups based on LCLint
302 feedback. ffi_mips.h is always installed. Many configuration
303 fixes. Fixed ffitest.c for sparc builds.
306 Fixed n32 problem. Many clean-ups.
309 Gordon Irlam rewrites v8.S again. Bug fixes.
312 Gordon Irlam improved the sparc port.
315 Interface changes based on feedback.
318 Sparc port complete (modulo struct passing bug).
321 Passing struct args, and returning struct values works for
322 all architectures/calling conventions. Expanded tests.
325 Added SGI n32 support. Fixed bugs in both o32 and Linux support.
329 Fixed float passing bug in mips version. Restructured some
330 of the code. Builds cleanly with SGI tools.
333 First release. No public announcement.
339 libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green@redhat.com>.
341 The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made
342 innumerable valuable contributions. See the ChangeLog file for
345 Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free
346 gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines.
348 The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab
351 Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following
354 aarch64 Marcus Shawcroft, James Greenhalgh
355 alpha Richard Henderson
357 blackfin Alexandre Keunecke I. de Mendonca
358 cris Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson
363 microblaze Nathan Rossi
364 mips Anthony Green, Casey Marshall
367 pa Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler
368 powerpc Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler,
369 David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist
370 powerpc64 Jakub Jelinek
371 s390 Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand
374 sparc Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam
375 tile-gx/tilepro Walter Lee
376 x86 Anthony Green, Jon Beniston
380 Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of
381 stepping through the code and tracking down bugs.
383 Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and
386 Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi
389 Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite.
391 Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux.
393 The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate. I'm
394 happy to make corrections or additions upon request.
396 If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to the
397 author at green@moxielogic.com, or the project mailing list at
398 libffi-discuss@sourceware.org.