1 Status 2 ====== 3 4 libffi-3.2.1 was released on November 12, 2014. 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 (a] 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 -nologo -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-cl" 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 3.2.1 Nov-12-14 186 Build fix for non-iOS AArch64 targets. 187 188 3.2 Nov-11-14 189 Add C99 Complex Type support (currently only supported on 190 s390). 191 Add support for PASCAL and REGISTER calling conventions on x86 192 Windows/Linux. 193 Add OpenRISC and Cygwin-64 support. 194 Bug fixes. 195 196 3.1 May-19-14 197 Add AArch64 (ARM64) iOS support. 198 Add Nios II support. 199 Add m88k and DEC VAX support. 200 Add support for stdcall, thiscall, and fastcall on non-Windows 201 32-bit x86 targets such as Linux. 202 Various Android, MIPS N32, x86, FreeBSD and UltraSPARC IIi 203 fixes. 204 Make the testsuite more robust: eliminate several spurious 205 failures, and respect the $CC and $CXX environment variables. 206 Archive off the manually maintained ChangeLog in favor of git 207 log. 208 209 3.0.13 Mar-17-13 210 Add Meta support. 211 Add missing Moxie bits. 212 Fix stack alignment bug on 32-bit x86. 213 Build fix for m68000 targets. 214 Build fix for soft-float Power targets. 215 Fix the install dir location for some platforms when building 216 with GCC (OS X, Solaris). 217 Fix Cygwin regression. 218 219 3.0.12 Feb-11-13 220 Add Moxie support. 221 Add AArch64 support. 222 Add Blackfin support. 223 Add TILE-Gx/TILEPro support. 224 Add MicroBlaze support. 225 Add Xtensa support. 226 Add support for PaX enabled kernels with MPROTECT. 227 Add support for native vendor compilers on 228 Solaris and AIX. 229 Work around LLVM/GCC interoperability issue on x86_64. 230 231 3.0.11 Apr-11-12 232 Lots of build fixes. 233 Add support for variadic functions (ffi_prep_cif_var). 234 Add Linux/x32 support. 235 Add thiscall, fastcall and MSVC cdecl support on Windows. 236 Add Amiga and newer MacOS support. 237 Add m68k FreeMiNT support. 238 Integration with iOS' xcode build tools. 239 Fix Octeon and MC68881 support. 240 Fix code pessimizations. 241 242 3.0.10 Aug-23-11 243 Add support for Apple's iOS. 244 Add support for ARM VFP ABI. 245 Add RTEMS support for MIPS and M68K. 246 Fix instruction cache clearing problems on 247 ARM and SPARC. 248 Fix the N64 build on mips-sgi-irix6.5. 249 Enable builds with Microsoft's compiler. 250 Enable x86 builds with Oracle's Solaris compiler. 251 Fix support for calling code compiled with Oracle's Sparc 252 Solaris compiler. 253 Testsuite fixes for Tru64 Unix. 254 Additional platform support. 255 256 3.0.9 Dec-31-09 257 Add AVR32 and win64 ports. Add ARM softfp support. 258 Many fixes for AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD. 259 Several PowerPC and x86-64 bug fixes. 260 Build DLL for windows. 261 262 3.0.8 Dec-19-08 263 Add *BSD, BeOS, and PA-Linux support. 264 265 3.0.7 Nov-11-08 266 Fix for ppc FreeBSD. 267 (thanks to Andreas Tobler) 268 269 3.0.6 Jul-17-08 270 Fix for closures on sh. 271 Mark the sh/sh64 stack as non-executable. 272 (both thanks to Kaz Kojima) 273 274 3.0.5 Apr-3-08 275 Fix libffi.pc file. 276 Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users. 277 Fix x86 closure bug. 278 279 3.0.4 Feb-24-08 280 Fix x86 OpenBSD configury. 281 282 3.0.3 Feb-22-08 283 Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and 284 x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Bjrn Knig and Andreas Tobler. 285 Clean up test instruction in README. 286 287 3.0.2 Feb-21-08 288 Improved x86 FreeBSD support. 289 Thanks to Bjrn Knig. 290 291 3.0.1 Feb-15-08 292 Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS. 293 Thanks to David Daney. 294 295 3.0.0 Feb-15-08 296 Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project. 297 Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat. 298 299 [10 years go by...] 300 301 1.20 Oct-5-98 302 Raffaele Sena produces ARM port. 303 304 1.19 Oct-5-98 305 Fixed x86 long double and long long return support. 306 m68k bug fixes from Andreas Schwab. 307 Patch for DU assembler compatibility for the Alpha from Richard 308 Henderson. 309 310 1.18 Apr-17-98 311 Bug fixes and MIPS configuration changes. 312 313 1.17 Feb-24-98 314 Bug fixes and m68k port from Andreas Schwab. PowerPC port from 315 Geoffrey Keating. Various bug x86, Sparc and MIPS bug fixes. 316 317 1.16 Feb-11-98 318 Richard Henderson produces Alpha port. 319 320 1.15 Dec-4-97 321 Fixed an n32 ABI bug. New libtool, auto* support. 322 323 1.14 May-13-97 324 libtool is now used to generate shared and static libraries. 325 Fixed a minor portability problem reported by Russ McManus 326 <mcmanr (a] eq.gs.com>. 327 328 1.13 Dec-2-96 329 Added --enable-purify-safety to keep Purify from complaining 330 about certain low level code. 331 Sparc fix for calling functions with < 6 args. 332 Linux x86 a.out fix. 333 334 1.12 Nov-22-96 335 Added missing ffi_type_void, needed for supporting void return 336 types. Fixed test case for non MIPS machines. Cygnus Support 337 is now Cygnus Solutions. 338 339 1.11 Oct-30-96 340 Added notes about GNU make. 341 342 1.10 Oct-29-96 343 Added configuration fix for non GNU compilers. 344 345 1.09 Oct-29-96 346 Added --enable-debug configure switch. Clean-ups based on LCLint 347 feedback. ffi_mips.h is always installed. Many configuration 348 fixes. Fixed ffitest.c for sparc builds. 349 350 1.08 Oct-15-96 351 Fixed n32 problem. Many clean-ups. 352 353 1.07 Oct-14-96 354 Gordon Irlam rewrites v8.S again. Bug fixes. 355 356 1.06 Oct-14-96 357 Gordon Irlam improved the sparc port. 358 359 1.05 Oct-14-96 360 Interface changes based on feedback. 361 362 1.04 Oct-11-96 363 Sparc port complete (modulo struct passing bug). 364 365 1.03 Oct-10-96 366 Passing struct args, and returning struct values works for 367 all architectures/calling conventions. Expanded tests. 368 369 1.02 Oct-9-96 370 Added SGI n32 support. Fixed bugs in both o32 and Linux support. 371 Added "make test". 372 373 1.01 Oct-8-96 374 Fixed float passing bug in mips version. Restructured some 375 of the code. Builds cleanly with SGI tools. 376 377 1.00 Oct-7-96 378 First release. No public announcement. 379 380 381 Authors & Credits 382 ================= 383 384 libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green (a] moxielogic.com>. 385 386 The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made 387 innumerable valuable contributions. See the ChangeLog file for 388 details. 389 390 Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free 391 gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines. 392 393 The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab 394 Thorup. 395 396 Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following 397 developers: 398 399 aarch64 Marcus Shawcroft, James Greenhalgh 400 alpha Richard Henderson 401 arm Raffaele Sena 402 blackfin Alexandre Keunecke I. de Mendonca 403 cris Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson 404 frv Anthony Green 405 ia64 Hans Boehm 406 m32r Kazuhiro Inaoka 407 m68k Andreas Schwab 408 m88k Miod Vallat 409 microblaze Nathan Rossi 410 mips Anthony Green, Casey Marshall 411 mips64 David Daney 412 moxie Anthony Green 413 nios ii Sandra Loosemore 414 openrisc Sebastian Macke 415 pa Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler 416 powerpc Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler, 417 David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist 418 powerpc64 Jakub Jelinek 419 s390 Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand 420 sh Kaz Kojima 421 sh64 Kaz Kojima 422 sparc Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam 423 tile-gx/tilepro Walter Lee 424 vax Miod Vallat 425 x86 Anthony Green, Jon Beniston 426 x86-64 Bo Thorsen 427 xtensa Chris Zankel 428 429 Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of 430 stepping through the code and tracking down bugs. 431 432 Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and 433 configuration help. 434 435 Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi 436 interface. 437 438 Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite. 439 440 Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux. 441 442 The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate. I'm 443 happy to make corrections or additions upon request. 444 445 If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to the 446 author at green (a] moxielogic.com, or the project mailing list at 447 libffi-discuss (a] sourceware.org. 448
