I'm not 100% certain this is a bug yet, but I'm beginning to think it's likely.

On 64-bit Linux, I can't pass a struct like this:

    struct S { uint8_t data[16]; };

...to a function declared like this:

    void f(struct S);

From experimentation with various integer types and array sizes, it seems this causes an abort somewhere in libffi any time the array is between 9 and 16 bytes in size. If the array is smaller or larger than that, the calls work as expected.

I've asked about this here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25487928/is-this-the-correct-way-to-pass-a-struct-by-value-in-ctypes

Here's some test code:

## sum.cpp

    #include <cstdint>

    using std::size_t;

    struct ArrayStruct {
        // We'll define ARRAY_TYPE and ARRAY_SIZE on the
        // command-line when we compile.
        std::ARRAY_TYPE data[ARRAY_SIZE];
    };

    extern "C" int64_t sum(struct ArrayStruct array)
    {
        int64_t acc=0;
        for (size_t i=0; i!=ARRAY_SIZE; ++i)
        {
            acc+=array.data[i];
        }
        return acc;
    }

## sum.py
    import ctypes
    import sys

    def main():
        array_size = int(sys.argv[1])
        array_type = sys.argv[2]

        libsum = ctypes.cdll.LoadLibrary('./libsum.so')

        ArrType = getattr(ctypes, 'c_' + array_type) * array_size

        class MyStruct(ctypes.Structure):
            _fields_ = [("data", ArrType)]

        m=MyStruct()
        for i in range(array_size):
            m.data[i]=i

        print(libsum.sum(m))

    if __name__ == '__main__':
        main()

## Build/run

    $ g++ -g -shared -Wall -fPIC sum.cpp -o libsum.so -std=c++11 -D ARRAY_SIZE=16 -D ARRAY_TYPE=uint8_t && python3 sum.py 16 uint8
    Aborted (core dumped)

I poked around a little bit in gdb. It's aborting in libffi's "ffi_call" function: https://github.com/atgreen/libffi/blob/v3.0.13/src/x86/ffi64.c#L516

(gdb) bt
#0  0x00007ffff782cf79 in __GI_raise (sig=sig@entry=6) at ../nptl/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/raise.c:56
#1  0x00007ffff7830388 in __GI_abort () at abort.c:89
#2  0x00007ffff67134f5 in ffi_call (cif=0x7fffffffd7b0, fn=0x7ffff650c625 <sum(ArrayStruct)>, rvalue=0x7fffffffd6f0, avalue=0x7fffffffd6d0) at ../src/x86/ffi64.c:516
#3  0x00007ffff691fee3 in _ctypes_callproc () from /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_ctypes.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
#4  0x00007ffff6920578 in ?? () from /usr/lib/python3.4/lib-dynload/_ctypes.cpython-34m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so
#5  0x000000000043810a in PyObject_Call ()
#6  0x0000000000579f45 in PyEval_EvalFrameEx ()
#7  0x000000000057d3d3 in PyEval_EvalCodeEx ()
#8  0x000000000057bfaa in PyEval_EvalFrameEx ()
#9  0x000000000057d3d3 in PyEval_EvalCodeEx ()
#10 0x000000000060ba83 in PyRun_FileExFlags ()
#11 0x000000000060bc85 in PyRun_SimpleFileExFlags ()
#12 0x000000000060d3ac in Py_Main ()
#13 0x000000000041ec0d in main ()
(gdb) frame 2
#2  0x00007ffff67134f5 in ffi_call (cif=0x7fffffffd7b0, fn=0x7ffff650c625 <sum(ArrayStruct)>, rvalue=0x7fffffffd6f0, avalue=0x7fffffffd6d0) at ../src/x86/ffi64.c:516
516			  abort();
(gdb) info args
cif = 0x7fffffffd7b0
fn = 0x7ffff650c625 <sum(ArrayStruct)>
rvalue = 0x7fffffffd6f0
avalue = 0x7fffffffd6d0
(gdb) info locals
a = <optimized out>
j = <optimized out>
size = 8
n = <optimized out>
classes = {X86_64_INTEGER_CLASS, X86_64_NO_CLASS, 4294956784, 32767}
stack = 0x7fffffffd4f0 ""
argp = 0x7fffffffd5a0 "\001"
arg_types = 0x7fffffffd6b0
gprcount = 1
ssecount = <optimized out>
ngpr = 1
nsse = 0
i = <optimized out>
avn = <optimized out>
ret_in_memory = <optimized out>
reg_args = 0x7fffffffd4f0
(gdb) print *cif
$2 = {abi = FFI_UNIX64, nargs = 1, arg_types = 0x7fffffffd6b0, rtype = 0x7ffff6b5e228, bytes = 0, flags = 10}

It looks like we're trying to pass the struct in two registers, which I think is what's supposed to happen, but something is going wrong with the second register. It aborted because it has class X86_64_NO_CLASS and that's not handled by the switch.

I don't know if this is a bug in libffi, or if ctypes is feeding it bad information, or if I'm feeding ctypes bad information. I hope this information is useful for anyone investigating.

I get the same abort in both Python 2.7.6 and 3.4.0.

I originally stumbled across this issue trying to use PySDL2:

http://pysdl2.readthedocs.org/en/rel_0_9_3/

I was trying to call SDL_JoystickGetGUIDString, which uses a similar struct-by-value call:

http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/file/92ca74200ea5/include/SDL_joystick.h