-README for libffi-2.00
+Status
+======
-libffi-2.00 has not been released yet! This is a development snapshot!
-
-libffi-1.20 was released on [SOME FUTURE DAY]. Check the libffi web
-page for updates: <URL:http://sourceware.cygnus.com/libffi/>.
+libffi-4?? was released on TBD. Check the libffi web
+page for updates: <URL:http://sourceware.org/libffi/>.
What is libffi?
call any function specified by a call interface description at run
time.
-Ffi stands for Foreign Function Interface. A foreign function
+FFI stands for Foreign Function Interface. A foreign function
interface is the popular name for the interface that allows code
written in one language to call code written in another language. The
libffi library really only provides the lowest, machine dependent
between the two languages.
-Supported Platforms and Prerequisites
-=====================================
-
-Libffi has been ported to:
-
- SunOS 4.1.3 & Solaris 2.x (Sparc v8)
-
- Irix 5.3 & 6.2 (System V/o32 & n32)
-
- Intel x86 - Linux (System V ABI)
-
- Alpha - Linux and OSF/1
-
- m68k - Linux (System V ABI)
-
- PowerPC - Linux (System V ABI)
-
- ARM - Linux (System V ABI)
-
-Libffi has been tested with the egcs 1.0.2 gcc compiler. Chances are
-that other versions will work. Libffi has also been built and tested
-with the SGI compiler tools.
-
-On PowerPC, the tests failed (see the note below).
-
-You must use GNU make to build libffi. SGI's make will not work.
-Sun's probably won't either.
-
-If you port libffi to another platform, please let me know! I assume
-that some will be easy (x86 NetBSD), and others will be more difficult
-(HP, AIX).
-
+Supported Platforms
+===================
+
+Libffi has been ported to many different platforms.
+For specific configuration details and testing status, please
+refer to the wiki page here:
+
+ http://www.moxielogic.org/wiki/index.php?title=Libffi_3.2
+
+At the time of release, the following basic configurations have been
+tested:
+
+|-----------------+------------------+-------------------------|
+| Architecture | Operating System | Compiler |
+|-----------------+------------------+-------------------------|
+| AArch64 (ARM64) | iOS | Clang |
+| AArch64 | Linux | GCC |
+| Alpha | Linux | GCC |
+| Alpha | Tru64 | GCC |
+| ARC | Linux | GCC |
+| ARM | Linux | GCC |
+| ARM | iOS | GCC |
+| AVR32 | Linux | GCC |
+| Blackfin | uClinux | GCC |
+| HPPA | HPUX | GCC |
+| IA-64 | Linux | GCC |
+| M68K | FreeMiNT | GCC |
+| M68K | Linux | GCC |
+| M68K | RTEMS | GCC |
+| M88K | OpenBSD/mvme88k | GCC |
+| Meta | Linux | GCC |
+| MicroBlaze | Linux | GCC |
+| MIPS | IRIX | GCC |
+| MIPS | Linux | GCC |
+| MIPS | RTEMS | GCC |
+| MIPS64 | Linux | GCC |
+| Moxie | Bare metal | GCC |
+| Nios II | Linux | GCC |
+| OpenRISC | Linux | GCC |
+| PowerPC 32-bit | AIX | IBM XL C |
+| PowerPC 64-bit | AIX | IBM XL C |
+| PowerPC | AMIGA | GCC |
+| PowerPC | Linux | GCC |
+| PowerPC | Mac OSX | GCC |
+| PowerPC | FreeBSD | GCC |
+| PowerPC 64-bit | FreeBSD | GCC |
+| PowerPC 64-bit | Linux ELFv1 | GCC |
+| PowerPC 64-bit | Linux ELFv2 | GCC |
+| S390 | Linux | GCC |
+| S390X | Linux | GCC |
+| SPARC | Linux | GCC |
+| SPARC | Solaris | GCC |
+| SPARC | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
+| SPARC64 | Linux | GCC |
+| SPARC64 | FreeBSD | GCC |
+| SPARC64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
+| TILE-Gx/TILEPro | Linux | GCC |
+| VAX | OpenBSD/vax | GCC |
+| X86 | FreeBSD | GCC |
+| X86 | GNU HURD | GCC |
+| X86 | Interix | GCC |
+| X86 | kFreeBSD | GCC |
+| X86 | Linux | GCC |
+| X86 | Mac OSX | GCC |
+| X86 | OpenBSD | GCC |
+| X86 | OS/2 | GCC |
+| X86 | Solaris | GCC |
+| X86 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
+| X86 | Windows/Cygwin | GCC |
+| X86 | Windows/MingW | GCC |
+| X86-64 | FreeBSD | GCC |
+| X86-64 | Linux | GCC |
+| X86-64 | Linux/x32 | GCC |
+| X86-64 | OpenBSD | GCC |
+| X86-64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C |
+| X86-64 | Windows/Cygwin | GCC |
+| X86-64 | Windows/MingW | GCC |
+| Xtensa | Linux | GCC |
+|-----------------+------------------+-------------------------|
+
+Please send additional platform test results to
+libffi-discuss@sourceware.org and feel free to update the wiki page
+above.
Installing libffi
=================
-[Note: before actually performing any of these installation steps,
- you may wish to read the "Platform Specific Notes" below.]
-
First you must configure the distribution for your particular
system. Go to the directory you wish to build libffi in and run the
"configure" program found in the root directory of the libffi source
distribution.
+If you're building libffi directly from version control, configure won't
+exist yet; run ./autogen.sh first.
+
You may want to tell configure where to install the libffi library and
header files. To do that, use the --prefix configure switch. Libffi
will install under /usr/local by default.
are using Purify with libffi. Only use this switch when using
Purify, as it will slow down the library.
-Configure has many other options. Use "configure --help" to see them all.
-
-Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using
-GNU make. SGI's make will not work. Sun's probably won't either.
-You can ftp GNU make from prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu.
-
-To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make test".
-
-To install the library and header files, type "make install".
-
-
-Using libffi
-============
-
- The Basics
- ----------
-
-Libffi assumes that you have a pointer to the function you wish to
-call and that you know the number and types of arguments to pass it,
-as well as the return type of the function.
-
-The first thing you must do is create an ffi_cif object that matches
-the signature of the function you wish to call. The cif in ffi_cif
-stands for Call InterFace. To prepare a call interface object, use the
-following function:
-
-ffi_status ffi_prep_cif(ffi_cif *cif, ffi_abi abi,
- unsigned int nargs,
- ffi_type *rtype, ffi_type **atypes);
-
- CIF is a pointer to the call interface object you wish
- to initialize.
-
- ABI is an enum that specifies the calling convention
- to use for the call. FFI_DEFAULT_ABI defaults
- to the system's native calling convention. Other
- ABI's may be used with care. They are system
- specific.
-
- NARGS is the number of arguments this function accepts.
- libffi does not yet support vararg functions.
-
- RTYPE is a pointer to an ffi_type structure that represents
- the return type of the function. Ffi_type objects
- describe the types of values. libffi provides
- ffi_type objects for many of the native C types:
- signed int, unsigned int, signed char, unsigned char,
- etc. There is also a pointer ffi_type object and
- a void ffi_type. Use &ffi_type_void for functions that
- don't return values.
-
- ATYPES is a vector of ffi_type pointers. ARGS must be NARGS long.
- If NARGS is 0, this is ignored.
-
-
-ffi_prep_cif will return a status code that you are responsible
-for checking. It will be one of the following:
-
- FFI_OK - All is good.
-
- FFI_BAD_TYPEDEF - One of the ffi_type objects that ffi_prep_cif
- came across is bad.
+It's also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with
+Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler. In this case, use the msvcc.sh
+wrapper script during configuration like so:
+path/to/configure CC=path/to/msvcc.sh CXX=path/to/msvcc.sh LD=link CPP="cl -nologo -EP"
-Before making the call, the VALUES vector should be initialized
-with pointers to the appropriate argument values.
-
-To call the the function using the initialized ffi_cif, use the
-ffi_call function:
-
-void ffi_call(ffi_cif *cif, void *fn, void *rvalue, void **avalues);
-
- CIF is a pointer to the ffi_cif initialized specifically
- for this function.
-
- FN is a pointer to the function you want to call.
-
- RVALUE is a pointer to a chunk of memory that is to hold the
- result of the function call. Currently, it must be
- at least one word in size (except for the n32 version
- under Irix 6.x, which must be a pointer to an 8 byte
- aligned value (a long long). It must also be at least
- word aligned (depending on the return type, and the
- system's alignment requirements). If RTYPE is
- &ffi_type_void, this is ignored. If RVALUE is NULL,
- the return value is discarded.
-
- AVALUES is a vector of void* that point to the memory locations
- holding the argument values for a call.
- If NARGS is 0, this is ignored.
-
-
-If you are expecting a return value from FN it will have been stored
-at RVALUE.
-
-
-
- An Example
- ----------
-
-Here is a trivial example that calls puts() a few times.
-
- #include <stdio.h>
- #include <ffi.h>
-
- int main()
- {
- ffi_cif cif;
- ffi_type *args[1];
- void *values[1];
- char *s;
- int rc;
-
- /* Initialize the argument info vectors */
- args[0] = &ffi_type_uint;
- values[0] = &s;
-
- /* Initialize the cif */
- if (ffi_prep_cif(&cif, FFI_DEFAULT_ABI, 1,
- &ffi_type_uint, args) == FFI_OK)
- {
- s = "Hello World!";
- ffi_call(&cif, puts, &rc, values);
- /* rc now holds the result of the call to puts */
-
- /* values holds a pointer to the function's arg, so to
- call puts() again all we need to do is change the
- value of s */
- s = "This is cool!";
- ffi_call(&cif, puts, &rc, values);
- }
-
- return 0;
- }
-
-
-
- Aggregate Types
- ---------------
-
-Although libffi has no special support for unions or bit-fields, it is
-perfectly happy passing structures back and forth. You must first
-describe the structure to libffi by creating a new ffi_type object
-for it. Here is the definition of ffi_type:
-
- typedef struct _ffi_type
- {
- unsigned size;
- short alignment;
- short type;
- struct _ffi_type **elements;
- } ffi_type;
-
-All structures must have type set to FFI_TYPE_STRUCT. You may set
-size and alignment to 0. These will be calculated and reset to the
-appropriate values by ffi_prep_cif().
+For 64-bit Windows builds, use CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64" and
+CXX="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64". You may also need to specify --build
+appropriately.
-elements is a NULL terminated array of pointers to ffi_type objects
-that describe the type of the structure elements. These may, in turn,
-be structure elements.
+It is also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with the LLVM
+project's clang-cl compiler, like below:
-The following example initializes a ffi_type object representing the
-tm struct from Linux's time.h:
+path/to/configure CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -clang-cl" CXX="path/to/msvcc.sh -clang-cl" LD=link CPP="clang-cl -EP"
- struct tm {
- int tm_sec;
- int tm_min;
- int tm_hour;
- int tm_mday;
- int tm_mon;
- int tm_year;
- int tm_wday;
- int tm_yday;
- int tm_isdst;
- /* Those are for future use. */
- long int __tm_gmtoff__;
- __const char *__tm_zone__;
- };
-
- {
- ffi_type tm_type;
- ffi_type *tm_type_elements[12];
- int i;
-
- tm_type.size = tm_type.alignment = 0;
- tm_type.elements = &tm_type_elements;
-
- for (i = 0; i < 9; i++)
- tm_type_elements[i] = &ffi_type_sint;
+When building with MSVC under a MingW environment, you may need to
+remove the line in configure that sets 'fix_srcfile_path' to a 'cygpath'
+command. ('cygpath' is not present in MingW, and is not required when
+using MingW-style paths.)
- tm_type_elements[9] = &ffi_type_slong;
- tm_type_elements[10] = &ffi_type_pointer;
- tm_type_elements[11] = NULL;
-
- /* tm_type can now be used to represent tm argument types and
- return types for ffi_prep_cif() */
- }
-
-
-
-Platform Specific Notes
-=======================
-
- Intel x86
- ---------
-
-There are no known problems with the x86 port.
-
- Sun Sparc - SunOS 4.1.3 & Solaris 2.x
- -------------------------------------
-
-There's a bug in the structure passing code for sparc processors.
-Struct arguments that are passed in value actually end up being passed
-by reference. This will be fixed Real Soon Now.
+For iOS builds, the 'libffi.xcodeproj' Xcode project is available.
-"long long" values are not supported yet.
-
-You must use GNU Make to build libffi on Sun platforms.
-
- MIPS - Irix 5.3 & 6.x
- ---------------------
-
-Irix 6.2 and better supports three different calling conventions: o32,
-n32 and n64. Currently, libffi only supports both o32 and n32 under
-Irix 6.x, but only o32 under Irix 5.3. Libffi will automatically be
-configured for whichever calling convention it was built for.
-
-By default, the configure script will try to build libffi with the GNU
-development tools. To build libffi with the SGI development tools, set
-the environment variable CC to either "cc -32" or "cc -n32" before
-running configure under Irix 6.x (depending on whether you want an o32
-or n32 library), or just "cc" for Irix 5.3.
-
-With the n32 calling convention, when returning structures smaller
-than 16 bytes, be sure to provide an RVALUE that is 8 byte aligned.
-Here's one way of forcing this:
-
- double struct_storage[2];
- my_small_struct *s = (my_small_struct *) struct_storage;
- /* Use s for RVALUE */
-
-If you don't do this you are liable to get spurious bus errors.
-
-"long long" values are not supported yet.
-
-You must use GNU Make to build libffi on SGI platforms.
-
- ARM - System V ABI
- ------------------
-
-The ARM port was performed on a NetWinder running ARM Linux ELF
-(2.0.31) and gcc 2.8.1.
-
-
-
- PowerPC System V ABI
- --------------------
-
-There are two `System V ABI's which libffi implements for PowerPC.
-They differ only in how small structures are returned from functions.
-
-In the FFI_SYSV version, structures that are 8 bytes or smaller are
-returned in registers. This is what GCC does when it is configured
-for solaris, and is what the System V ABI I have (dated September
-1995) says.
-
-In the FFI_GCC_SYSV version, all structures are returned the same way:
-by passing a pointer as the first argument to the function. This is
-what GCC does when it is configured for linux or a generic sysv
-target.
-
-EGCS 1.0.1 (and probably other versions of EGCS/GCC) also has a
-inconsistency with the SysV ABI: When a procedure is called with many
-floating-point arguments, some of them get put on the stack. They are
-all supposed to be stored in double-precision format, even if they are
-only single-precision, but EGCS stores single-precision arguments as
-single-precision anyway. This causes one test to fail (the `many
-arguments' test).
+Configure has many other options. Use "configure --help" to see them all.
+Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using
+GNU make. You can ftp GNU make from ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/make .
-What's With The Crazy Comments?
-===============================
+To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make check".
+This will require that you have DejaGNU installed.
-You might notice a number of cryptic comments in the code, delimited
-by /*@ and @*/. These are annotations read by the program LCLint, a
-tool for statically checking C programs. You can read all about it at
-<http://larch-www.lcs.mit.edu:8001/larch/lclint/index.html>.
+To install the library and header files, type "make install".
History
=======
+See the git log for details at http://github.com/atgreen/libffi.
+
+4.0 TBD
+ New API in support of GO closures.
+
+3.2.1 Nov-12-14
+ Build fix for non-iOS AArch64 targets.
+
+3.2 Nov-11-14
+ Add C99 Complex Type support (currently only supported on
+ s390).
+ Add support for PASCAL and REGISTER calling conventions on x86
+ Windows/Linux.
+ Add OpenRISC and Cygwin-64 support.
+ Bug fixes.
+
+3.1 May-19-14
+ Add AArch64 (ARM64) iOS support.
+ Add Nios II support.
+ Add m88k and DEC VAX support.
+ Add support for stdcall, thiscall, and fastcall on non-Windows
+ 32-bit x86 targets such as Linux.
+ Various Android, MIPS N32, x86, FreeBSD and UltraSPARC IIi
+ fixes.
+ Make the testsuite more robust: eliminate several spurious
+ failures, and respect the $CC and $CXX environment variables.
+ Archive off the manually maintained ChangeLog in favor of git
+ log.
+
+3.0.13 Mar-17-13
+ Add Meta support.
+ Add missing Moxie bits.
+ Fix stack alignment bug on 32-bit x86.
+ Build fix for m68000 targets.
+ Build fix for soft-float Power targets.
+ Fix the install dir location for some platforms when building
+ with GCC (OS X, Solaris).
+ Fix Cygwin regression.
+
+3.0.12 Feb-11-13
+ Add Moxie support.
+ Add AArch64 support.
+ Add Blackfin support.
+ Add TILE-Gx/TILEPro support.
+ Add MicroBlaze support.
+ Add Xtensa support.
+ Add support for PaX enabled kernels with MPROTECT.
+ Add support for native vendor compilers on
+ Solaris and AIX.
+ Work around LLVM/GCC interoperability issue on x86_64.
+
+3.0.11 Apr-11-12
+ Lots of build fixes.
+ Add support for variadic functions (ffi_prep_cif_var).
+ Add Linux/x32 support.
+ Add thiscall, fastcall and MSVC cdecl support on Windows.
+ Add Amiga and newer MacOS support.
+ Add m68k FreeMiNT support.
+ Integration with iOS' xcode build tools.
+ Fix Octeon and MC68881 support.
+ Fix code pessimizations.
+
+3.0.10 Aug-23-11
+ Add support for Apple's iOS.
+ Add support for ARM VFP ABI.
+ Add RTEMS support for MIPS and M68K.
+ Fix instruction cache clearing problems on
+ ARM and SPARC.
+ Fix the N64 build on mips-sgi-irix6.5.
+ Enable builds with Microsoft's compiler.
+ Enable x86 builds with Oracle's Solaris compiler.
+ Fix support for calling code compiled with Oracle's Sparc
+ Solaris compiler.
+ Testsuite fixes for Tru64 Unix.
+ Additional platform support.
+
+3.0.9 Dec-31-09
+ Add AVR32 and win64 ports. Add ARM softfp support.
+ Many fixes for AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD.
+ Several PowerPC and x86-64 bug fixes.
+ Build DLL for windows.
+
+3.0.8 Dec-19-08
+ Add *BSD, BeOS, and PA-Linux support.
+
+3.0.7 Nov-11-08
+ Fix for ppc FreeBSD.
+ (thanks to Andreas Tobler)
+
+3.0.6 Jul-17-08
+ Fix for closures on sh.
+ Mark the sh/sh64 stack as non-executable.
+ (both thanks to Kaz Kojima)
+
+3.0.5 Apr-3-08
+ Fix libffi.pc file.
+ Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users.
+ Fix x86 closure bug.
+
+3.0.4 Feb-24-08
+ Fix x86 OpenBSD configury.
+
+3.0.3 Feb-22-08
+ Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and
+ x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Björn König and Andreas Tobler.
+ Clean up test instruction in README.
+
+3.0.2 Feb-21-08
+ Improved x86 FreeBSD support.
+ Thanks to Björn König.
+
+3.0.1 Feb-15-08
+ Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS.
+ Thanks to David Daney.
+
+3.0.0 Feb-15-08
+ Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project.
+ Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat.
+
+ [10 years go by...]
+
1.20 Oct-5-98
Raffaele Sena produces ARM port.
Authors & Credits
=================
-libffi was written by Anthony Green <green@cygnus.com>.
+libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green@moxielogic.com>.
+
+The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made
+innumerable valuable contributions. See the ChangeLog file for
+details.
-Portions of libffi were derived from Gianni Mariani's free gencall
-library for Silicon Graphics machines.
+Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free
+gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines.
The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab
Thorup.
-The Sparc port was derived from code contributed by the fine folks at
-Visible Decisions Inc <http://www.vdi.com>. Further enhancements were
-made by Gordon Irlam at Cygnus Solutions <http://www.cygnus.com>.
-
-The Alpha port was written by Richard Henderson at Cygnus Solutions.
-
-Andreas Schwab ported libffi to m68k Linux and provided a number of
-bug fixes.
-
-Geoffrey Keating ported libffi to the PowerPC.
-
-Raffaele Sena ported libffi to the ARM.
+Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following
+developers:
+
+aarch64 Marcus Shawcroft, James Greenhalgh
+alpha Richard Henderson
+arm Raffaele Sena
+blackfin Alexandre Keunecke I. de Mendonca
+cris Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson
+frv Anthony Green
+ia64 Hans Boehm
+m32r Kazuhiro Inaoka
+m68k Andreas Schwab
+m88k Miod Vallat
+microblaze Nathan Rossi
+mips Anthony Green, Casey Marshall
+mips64 David Daney
+moxie Anthony Green
+nios ii Sandra Loosemore
+openrisc Sebastian Macke
+pa Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler
+powerpc Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler,
+ David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist
+powerpc64 Jakub Jelinek
+s390 Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand
+sh Kaz Kojima
+sh64 Kaz Kojima
+sparc Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam
+tile-gx/tilepro Walter Lee
+vax Miod Vallat
+x86 Anthony Green, Jon Beniston
+x86-64 Bo Thorsen
+xtensa Chris Zankel
Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of
stepping through the code and tracking down bugs.
-Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes and configuration help.
+Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and
+configuration help.
Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi
interface.
-If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to
-green@cygnus.com.
+Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite.
+
+Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux.
+
+The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate. I'm
+happy to make corrections or additions upon request.
+
+If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to the
+author at green@moxielogic.com, or the project mailing list at
+libffi-discuss@sourceware.org.
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