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| 1 Status |
| 2 ====== |
| 3 |
| 4 libffi-4?? was released on TBD. Check the libffi web |
| 5 page for updates: <URL:http://sourceware.org/libffi/>. |
| 6 |
| 7 |
| 8 What is libffi? |
| 9 =============== |
| 10 |
| 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. |
| 18 |
| 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. |
| 24 |
| 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 |
| 28 time. |
| 29 |
| 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. |
| 37 |
| 38 |
| 39 Supported Platforms |
| 40 =================== |
| 41 |
| 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: |
| 45 |
| 46 http://www.moxielogic.org/wiki/index.php?title=Libffi_3.2 |
| 47 |
| 48 At the time of release, the following basic configurations have been |
| 49 tested: |
| 50 |
| 51 |-----------------+------------------+-------------------------| |
| 52 | Architecture | Operating System | Compiler | |
| 53 |-----------------+------------------+-------------------------| |
| 54 | AArch64 (ARM64) | iOS | Clang | |
| 55 | AArch64 | Linux | GCC | |
| 56 | Alpha | Linux | GCC | |
| 57 | Alpha | Tru64 | GCC | |
| 58 | ARC | Linux | GCC | |
| 59 | ARM | Linux | GCC | |
| 60 | ARM | iOS | GCC | |
| 61 | AVR32 | Linux | GCC | |
| 62 | Blackfin | uClinux | GCC | |
| 63 | HPPA | HPUX | GCC | |
| 64 | IA-64 | Linux | GCC | |
| 65 | M68K | FreeMiNT | GCC | |
| 66 | M68K | Linux | GCC | |
| 67 | M68K | RTEMS | GCC | |
| 68 | M88K | OpenBSD/mvme88k | GCC | |
| 69 | Meta | Linux | GCC | |
| 70 | MicroBlaze | Linux | GCC | |
| 71 | MIPS | IRIX | GCC | |
| 72 | MIPS | Linux | GCC | |
| 73 | MIPS | RTEMS | GCC | |
| 74 | MIPS64 | Linux | GCC | |
| 75 | Moxie | Bare metal | GCC | |
| 76 | Nios II | Linux | GCC | |
| 77 | OpenRISC | Linux | GCC | |
| 78 | PowerPC 32-bit | AIX | IBM XL C | |
| 79 | PowerPC 64-bit | AIX | IBM XL C | |
| 80 | PowerPC | AMIGA | GCC | |
| 81 | PowerPC | Linux | GCC | |
| 82 | PowerPC | Mac OSX | GCC | |
| 83 | PowerPC | FreeBSD | GCC | |
| 84 | PowerPC 64-bit | FreeBSD | GCC | |
| 85 | PowerPC 64-bit | Linux ELFv1 | GCC | |
| 86 | PowerPC 64-bit | Linux ELFv2 | GCC | |
| 87 | S390 | Linux | GCC | |
| 88 | S390X | Linux | GCC | |
| 89 | SPARC | Linux | GCC | |
| 90 | SPARC | Solaris | GCC | |
| 91 | SPARC | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | |
| 92 | SPARC64 | Linux | GCC | |
| 93 | SPARC64 | FreeBSD | GCC | |
| 94 | SPARC64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | |
| 95 | TILE-Gx/TILEPro | Linux | GCC | |
| 96 | VAX | OpenBSD/vax | GCC | |
| 97 | X86 | FreeBSD | GCC | |
| 98 | X86 | GNU HURD | GCC | |
| 99 | X86 | Interix | GCC | |
| 100 | X86 | kFreeBSD | GCC | |
| 101 | X86 | Linux | GCC | |
| 102 | X86 | Mac OSX | GCC | |
| 103 | X86 | OpenBSD | GCC | |
| 104 | X86 | OS/2 | GCC | |
| 105 | X86 | Solaris | GCC | |
| 106 | X86 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | |
| 107 | X86 | Windows/Cygwin | GCC | |
| 108 | X86 | Windows/MingW | GCC | |
| 109 | X86-64 | FreeBSD | GCC | |
| 110 | X86-64 | Linux | GCC | |
| 111 | X86-64 | Linux/x32 | GCC | |
| 112 | X86-64 | OpenBSD | GCC | |
| 113 | X86-64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | |
| 114 | X86-64 | Windows/Cygwin | GCC | |
| 115 | X86-64 | Windows/MingW | GCC | |
| 116 | Xtensa | Linux | GCC | |
| 117 |-----------------+------------------+-------------------------| |
| 118 |
| 119 Please send additional platform test results to |
| 120 libffi-discuss@sourceware.org and feel free to update the wiki page |
| 121 above. |
| 122 |
| 123 Installing libffi |
| 124 ================= |
| 125 |
| 126 First you must configure the distribution for your particular |
| 127 system. Go to the directory you wish to build libffi in and run the |
| 128 "configure" program found in the root directory of the libffi source |
| 129 distribution. |
| 130 |
| 131 If you're building libffi directly from version control, configure won't |
| 132 exist yet; run ./autogen.sh first. |
| 133 |
| 134 You may want to tell configure where to install the libffi library and |
| 135 header files. To do that, use the --prefix configure switch. Libffi |
| 136 will install under /usr/local by default. |
| 137 |
| 138 If you want to enable extra run-time debugging checks use the the |
| 139 --enable-debug configure switch. This is useful when your program dies |
| 140 mysteriously while using libffi. |
| 141 |
| 142 Another useful configure switch is --enable-purify-safety. Using this |
| 143 will add some extra code which will suppress certain warnings when you |
| 144 are using Purify with libffi. Only use this switch when using |
| 145 Purify, as it will slow down the library. |
| 146 |
| 147 It's also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with |
| 148 Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler. In this case, use the msvcc.sh |
| 149 wrapper script during configuration like so: |
| 150 |
| 151 path/to/configure CC=path/to/msvcc.sh CXX=path/to/msvcc.sh LD=link CPP="cl -nolo
go -EP" |
| 152 |
| 153 For 64-bit Windows builds, use CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64" and |
| 154 CXX="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64". You may also need to specify --build |
| 155 appropriately. |
| 156 |
| 157 It is also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with the LLVM |
| 158 project's clang-cl compiler, like below: |
| 159 |
| 160 path/to/configure CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -clang-cl" CXX="path/to/msvcc.sh -clang-c
l" LD=link CPP="clang-cl -EP" |
| 161 |
| 162 When building with MSVC under a MingW environment, you may need to |
| 163 remove the line in configure that sets 'fix_srcfile_path' to a 'cygpath' |
| 164 command. ('cygpath' is not present in MingW, and is not required when |
| 165 using MingW-style paths.) |
| 166 |
| 167 For iOS builds, the 'libffi.xcodeproj' Xcode project is available. |
| 168 |
| 169 Configure has many other options. Use "configure --help" to see them all. |
| 170 |
| 171 Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using |
| 172 GNU make. You can ftp GNU make from ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/make . |
| 173 |
| 174 To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make check". |
| 175 This will require that you have DejaGNU installed. |
| 176 |
| 177 To install the library and header files, type "make install". |
| 178 |
| 179 |
| 180 History |
| 181 ======= |
| 182 |
| 183 See the git log for details at http://github.com/atgreen/libffi. |
| 184 |
| 185 4.0 TBD |
| 186 New API in support of GO closures. |
| 187 |
| 188 3.2.1 Nov-12-14 |
| 189 Build fix for non-iOS AArch64 targets. |
| 190 |
| 191 3.2 Nov-11-14 |
| 192 Add C99 Complex Type support (currently only supported on |
| 193 s390). |
| 194 Add support for PASCAL and REGISTER calling conventions on x86 |
| 195 Windows/Linux. |
| 196 Add OpenRISC and Cygwin-64 support. |
| 197 Bug fixes. |
| 198 |
| 199 3.1 May-19-14 |
| 200 Add AArch64 (ARM64) iOS support. |
| 201 Add Nios II support. |
| 202 Add m88k and DEC VAX support. |
| 203 Add support for stdcall, thiscall, and fastcall on non-Windows |
| 204 32-bit x86 targets such as Linux. |
| 205 Various Android, MIPS N32, x86, FreeBSD and UltraSPARC IIi |
| 206 fixes. |
| 207 Make the testsuite more robust: eliminate several spurious |
| 208 failures, and respect the $CC and $CXX environment variables. |
| 209 Archive off the manually maintained ChangeLog in favor of git |
| 210 log. |
| 211 |
| 212 3.0.13 Mar-17-13 |
| 213 Add Meta support. |
| 214 Add missing Moxie bits. |
| 215 Fix stack alignment bug on 32-bit x86. |
| 216 Build fix for m68000 targets. |
| 217 Build fix for soft-float Power targets. |
| 218 Fix the install dir location for some platforms when building |
| 219 with GCC (OS X, Solaris). |
| 220 Fix Cygwin regression. |
| 221 |
| 222 3.0.12 Feb-11-13 |
| 223 Add Moxie support. |
| 224 Add AArch64 support. |
| 225 Add Blackfin support. |
| 226 Add TILE-Gx/TILEPro support. |
| 227 Add MicroBlaze support. |
| 228 Add Xtensa support. |
| 229 Add support for PaX enabled kernels with MPROTECT. |
| 230 Add support for native vendor compilers on |
| 231 Solaris and AIX. |
| 232 Work around LLVM/GCC interoperability issue on x86_64. |
| 233 |
| 234 3.0.11 Apr-11-12 |
| 235 Lots of build fixes. |
| 236 Add support for variadic functions (ffi_prep_cif_var). |
| 237 Add Linux/x32 support. |
| 238 Add thiscall, fastcall and MSVC cdecl support on Windows. |
| 239 Add Amiga and newer MacOS support. |
| 240 Add m68k FreeMiNT support. |
| 241 Integration with iOS' xcode build tools. |
| 242 Fix Octeon and MC68881 support. |
| 243 Fix code pessimizations. |
| 244 |
| 245 3.0.10 Aug-23-11 |
| 246 Add support for Apple's iOS. |
| 247 Add support for ARM VFP ABI. |
| 248 Add RTEMS support for MIPS and M68K. |
| 249 Fix instruction cache clearing problems on |
| 250 ARM and SPARC. |
| 251 Fix the N64 build on mips-sgi-irix6.5. |
| 252 Enable builds with Microsoft's compiler. |
| 253 Enable x86 builds with Oracle's Solaris compiler. |
| 254 Fix support for calling code compiled with Oracle's Sparc |
| 255 Solaris compiler. |
| 256 Testsuite fixes for Tru64 Unix. |
| 257 Additional platform support. |
| 258 |
| 259 3.0.9 Dec-31-09 |
| 260 Add AVR32 and win64 ports. Add ARM softfp support. |
| 261 Many fixes for AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD. |
| 262 Several PowerPC and x86-64 bug fixes. |
| 263 Build DLL for windows. |
| 264 |
| 265 3.0.8 Dec-19-08 |
| 266 Add *BSD, BeOS, and PA-Linux support. |
| 267 |
| 268 3.0.7 Nov-11-08 |
| 269 Fix for ppc FreeBSD. |
| 270 (thanks to Andreas Tobler) |
| 271 |
| 272 3.0.6 Jul-17-08 |
| 273 Fix for closures on sh. |
| 274 Mark the sh/sh64 stack as non-executable. |
| 275 (both thanks to Kaz Kojima) |
| 276 |
| 277 3.0.5 Apr-3-08 |
| 278 Fix libffi.pc file. |
| 279 Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users. |
| 280 Fix x86 closure bug. |
| 281 |
| 282 3.0.4 Feb-24-08 |
| 283 Fix x86 OpenBSD configury. |
| 284 |
| 285 3.0.3 Feb-22-08 |
| 286 Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and |
| 287 x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Björn König and Andreas Tobler. |
| 288 Clean up test instruction in README. |
| 289 |
| 290 3.0.2 Feb-21-08 |
| 291 Improved x86 FreeBSD support. |
| 292 Thanks to Björn König. |
| 293 |
| 294 3.0.1 Feb-15-08 |
| 295 Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS. |
| 296 Thanks to David Daney. |
| 297 |
| 298 3.0.0 Feb-15-08 |
| 299 Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project. |
| 300 Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat. |
| 301 |
| 302 [10 years go by...] |
| 303 |
| 304 1.20 Oct-5-98 |
| 305 Raffaele Sena produces ARM port. |
| 306 |
| 307 1.19 Oct-5-98 |
| 308 Fixed x86 long double and long long return support. |
| 309 m68k bug fixes from Andreas Schwab. |
| 310 Patch for DU assembler compatibility for the Alpha from Richard |
| 311 Henderson. |
| 312 |
| 313 1.18 Apr-17-98 |
| 314 Bug fixes and MIPS configuration changes. |
| 315 |
| 316 1.17 Feb-24-98 |
| 317 Bug fixes and m68k port from Andreas Schwab. PowerPC port from |
| 318 Geoffrey Keating. Various bug x86, Sparc and MIPS bug fixes. |
| 319 |
| 320 1.16 Feb-11-98 |
| 321 Richard Henderson produces Alpha port. |
| 322 |
| 323 1.15 Dec-4-97 |
| 324 Fixed an n32 ABI bug. New libtool, auto* support. |
| 325 |
| 326 1.14 May-13-97 |
| 327 libtool is now used to generate shared and static libraries. |
| 328 Fixed a minor portability problem reported by Russ McManus |
| 329 <mcmanr@eq.gs.com>. |
| 330 |
| 331 1.13 Dec-2-96 |
| 332 Added --enable-purify-safety to keep Purify from complaining |
| 333 about certain low level code. |
| 334 Sparc fix for calling functions with < 6 args. |
| 335 Linux x86 a.out fix. |
| 336 |
| 337 1.12 Nov-22-96 |
| 338 Added missing ffi_type_void, needed for supporting void return |
| 339 types. Fixed test case for non MIPS machines. Cygnus Support |
| 340 is now Cygnus Solutions. |
| 341 |
| 342 1.11 Oct-30-96 |
| 343 Added notes about GNU make. |
| 344 |
| 345 1.10 Oct-29-96 |
| 346 Added configuration fix for non GNU compilers. |
| 347 |
| 348 1.09 Oct-29-96 |
| 349 Added --enable-debug configure switch. Clean-ups based on LCLint |
| 350 feedback. ffi_mips.h is always installed. Many configuration |
| 351 fixes. Fixed ffitest.c for sparc builds. |
| 352 |
| 353 1.08 Oct-15-96 |
| 354 Fixed n32 problem. Many clean-ups. |
| 355 |
| 356 1.07 Oct-14-96 |
| 357 Gordon Irlam rewrites v8.S again. Bug fixes. |
| 358 |
| 359 1.06 Oct-14-96 |
| 360 Gordon Irlam improved the sparc port. |
| 361 |
| 362 1.05 Oct-14-96 |
| 363 Interface changes based on feedback. |
| 364 |
| 365 1.04 Oct-11-96 |
| 366 Sparc port complete (modulo struct passing bug). |
| 367 |
| 368 1.03 Oct-10-96 |
| 369 Passing struct args, and returning struct values works for |
| 370 all architectures/calling conventions. Expanded tests. |
| 371 |
| 372 1.02 Oct-9-96 |
| 373 Added SGI n32 support. Fixed bugs in both o32 and Linux support. |
| 374 Added "make test". |
| 375 |
| 376 1.01 Oct-8-96 |
| 377 Fixed float passing bug in mips version. Restructured some |
| 378 of the code. Builds cleanly with SGI tools. |
| 379 |
| 380 1.00 Oct-7-96 |
| 381 First release. No public announcement. |
| 382 |
| 383 |
| 384 Authors & Credits |
| 385 ================= |
| 386 |
| 387 libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green@moxielogic.com>. |
| 388 |
| 389 The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made |
| 390 innumerable valuable contributions. See the ChangeLog file for |
| 391 details. |
| 392 |
| 393 Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free |
| 394 gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines. |
| 395 |
| 396 The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab |
| 397 Thorup. |
| 398 |
| 399 Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following |
| 400 developers: |
| 401 |
| 402 aarch64 Marcus Shawcroft, James Greenhalgh |
| 403 alpha Richard Henderson |
| 404 arm Raffaele Sena |
| 405 blackfin Alexandre Keunecke I. de Mendonca |
| 406 cris Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson |
| 407 frv Anthony Green |
| 408 ia64 Hans Boehm |
| 409 m32r Kazuhiro Inaoka |
| 410 m68k Andreas Schwab |
| 411 m88k Miod Vallat |
| 412 microblaze Nathan Rossi |
| 413 mips Anthony Green, Casey Marshall |
| 414 mips64 David Daney |
| 415 moxie Anthony Green |
| 416 nios ii Sandra Loosemore |
| 417 openrisc Sebastian Macke |
| 418 pa Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler |
| 419 powerpc Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler, |
| 420 David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist |
| 421 powerpc64 Jakub Jelinek |
| 422 s390 Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand |
| 423 sh Kaz Kojima |
| 424 sh64 Kaz Kojima |
| 425 sparc Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam |
| 426 tile-gx/tilepro Walter Lee |
| 427 vax Miod Vallat |
| 428 x86 Anthony Green, Jon Beniston |
| 429 x86-64 Bo Thorsen |
| 430 xtensa Chris Zankel |
| 431 |
| 432 Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of |
| 433 stepping through the code and tracking down bugs. |
| 434 |
| 435 Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and |
| 436 configuration help. |
| 437 |
| 438 Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi |
| 439 interface. |
| 440 |
| 441 Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite. |
| 442 |
| 443 Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux. |
| 444 |
| 445 The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate. I'm |
| 446 happy to make corrections or additions upon request. |
| 447 |
| 448 If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to the |
| 449 author at green@moxielogic.com, or the project mailing list at |
| 450 libffi-discuss@sourceware.org. |
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