1 Status 2 ====== 3 4 libffi-3.1 was released on May 19, 2014. Check the libffi web page 5 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_3.1 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 | PowerPC 32-bit | AIX | IBM XL C | 78 | PowerPC 64-bit | AIX | IBM XL C | 79 | PowerPC | AMIGA | GCC | 80 | PowerPC | Linux | GCC | 81 | PowerPC | Mac OSX | GCC | 82 | PowerPC | FreeBSD | GCC | 83 | PowerPC 64-bit | FreeBSD | GCC | 84 | PowerPC 64-bit | Linux ELFv1 | GCC | 85 | PowerPC 64-bit | Linux ELFv2 | GCC | 86 | S390 | Linux | GCC | 87 | S390X | Linux | GCC | 88 | SPARC | Linux | GCC | 89 | SPARC | Solaris | GCC | 90 | SPARC | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | 91 | SPARC64 | Linux | GCC | 92 | SPARC64 | FreeBSD | GCC | 93 | SPARC64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | 94 | TILE-Gx/TILEPro | Linux | GCC | 95 | VAX | OpenBSD/vax | GCC | 96 | X86 | FreeBSD | GCC | 97 | X86 | GNU HURD | GCC | 98 | X86 | Interix | GCC | 99 | X86 | kFreeBSD | GCC | 100 | X86 | Linux | GCC | 101 | X86 | Mac OSX | GCC | 102 | X86 | OpenBSD | GCC | 103 | X86 | OS/2 | GCC | 104 | X86 | Solaris | GCC | 105 | X86 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | 106 | X86 | Windows/Cygwin | GCC | 107 | X86 | Windows/MingW | GCC | 108 | X86-64 | FreeBSD | GCC | 109 | X86-64 | Linux | GCC | 110 | X86-64 | Linux/x32 | GCC | 111 | X86-64 | OpenBSD | GCC | 112 | X86-64 | Solaris | Oracle Solaris Studio C | 113 | X86-64 | Windows/MingW | GCC | 114 | Xtensa | Linux | GCC | 115 |-----------------+------------------+-------------------------| 116 117 Please send additional platform test results to 118 libffi-discuss (a] sourceware.org and feel free to update the wiki page 119 above. 120 121 Installing libffi 122 ================= 123 124 First you must configure the distribution for your particular 125 system. Go to the directory you wish to build libffi in and run the 126 "configure" program found in the root directory of the libffi source 127 distribution. 128 129 If you're building libffi directly from version control, configure won't 130 exist yet; run ./autogen.sh first. 131 132 You may want to tell configure where to install the libffi library and 133 header files. To do that, use the --prefix configure switch. Libffi 134 will install under /usr/local by default. 135 136 If you want to enable extra run-time debugging checks use the the 137 --enable-debug configure switch. This is useful when your program dies 138 mysteriously while using libffi. 139 140 Another useful configure switch is --enable-purify-safety. Using this 141 will add some extra code which will suppress certain warnings when you 142 are using Purify with libffi. Only use this switch when using 143 Purify, as it will slow down the library. 144 145 It's also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with 146 Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler. In this case, use the msvcc.sh 147 wrapper script during configuration like so: 148 149 path/to/configure CC=path/to/msvcc.sh CXX=path/to/msvcc.sh LD=link CPP=\"cl -nologo -EP\" 150 151 For 64-bit Windows builds, use CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64" and 152 CXX="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64". You may also need to specify --build 153 appropriately. 154 155 When building with MSVC under a MingW environment, you may need to 156 remove the line in configure that sets 'fix_srcfile_path' to a 'cygpath' 157 command. ('cygpath' is not present in MingW, and is not required when 158 using MingW-style paths.) 159 160 For iOS builds, the 'libffi.xcodeproj' Xcode project is available. 161 162 Configure has many other options. Use "configure --help" to see them all. 163 164 Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using 165 GNU make. You can ftp GNU make from ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/make . 166 167 To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make check". 168 This will require that you have DejaGNU installed. 169 170 To install the library and header files, type "make install". 171 172 173 History 174 ======= 175 176 See the git log for details at http://github.com/atgreen/libffi. 177 178 3.1 May-19-14 179 Add AArch64 (ARM64) iOS support. 180 Add Nios II support. 181 Add m88k and DEC VAX support. 182 Add support for stdcall, thiscall, and fastcall on non-Windows 183 32-bit x86 targets such as Linux. 184 Various Android, MIPS N32, x86, FreeBSD and UltraSPARC IIi 185 fixes. 186 Make the testsuite more robust: eliminate several spurious 187 failures, and respect the $CC and $CXX environment variables. 188 Archive off the manually maintained ChangeLog in favor of git 189 log. 190 191 3.0.13 Mar-17-13 192 Add Meta support. 193 Add missing Moxie bits. 194 Fix stack alignment bug on 32-bit x86. 195 Build fix for m68000 targets. 196 Build fix for soft-float Power targets. 197 Fix the install dir location for some platforms when building 198 with GCC (OS X, Solaris). 199 Fix Cygwin regression. 200 201 3.0.12 Feb-11-13 202 Add Moxie support. 203 Add AArch64 support. 204 Add Blackfin support. 205 Add TILE-Gx/TILEPro support. 206 Add MicroBlaze support. 207 Add Xtensa support. 208 Add support for PaX enabled kernels with MPROTECT. 209 Add support for native vendor compilers on 210 Solaris and AIX. 211 Work around LLVM/GCC interoperability issue on x86_64. 212 213 3.0.11 Apr-11-12 214 Lots of build fixes. 215 Add support for variadic functions (ffi_prep_cif_var). 216 Add Linux/x32 support. 217 Add thiscall, fastcall and MSVC cdecl support on Windows. 218 Add Amiga and newer MacOS support. 219 Add m68k FreeMiNT support. 220 Integration with iOS' xcode build tools. 221 Fix Octeon and MC68881 support. 222 Fix code pessimizations. 223 224 3.0.10 Aug-23-11 225 Add support for Apple's iOS. 226 Add support for ARM VFP ABI. 227 Add RTEMS support for MIPS and M68K. 228 Fix instruction cache clearing problems on 229 ARM and SPARC. 230 Fix the N64 build on mips-sgi-irix6.5. 231 Enable builds with Microsoft's compiler. 232 Enable x86 builds with Oracle's Solaris compiler. 233 Fix support for calling code compiled with Oracle's Sparc 234 Solaris compiler. 235 Testsuite fixes for Tru64 Unix. 236 Additional platform support. 237 238 3.0.9 Dec-31-09 239 Add AVR32 and win64 ports. Add ARM softfp support. 240 Many fixes for AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD. 241 Several PowerPC and x86-64 bug fixes. 242 Build DLL for windows. 243 244 3.0.8 Dec-19-08 245 Add *BSD, BeOS, and PA-Linux support. 246 247 3.0.7 Nov-11-08 248 Fix for ppc FreeBSD. 249 (thanks to Andreas Tobler) 250 251 3.0.6 Jul-17-08 252 Fix for closures on sh. 253 Mark the sh/sh64 stack as non-executable. 254 (both thanks to Kaz Kojima) 255 256 3.0.5 Apr-3-08 257 Fix libffi.pc file. 258 Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users. 259 Fix x86 closure bug. 260 261 3.0.4 Feb-24-08 262 Fix x86 OpenBSD configury. 263 264 3.0.3 Feb-22-08 265 Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and 266 x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Bjrn Knig and Andreas Tobler. 267 Clean up test instruction in README. 268 269 3.0.2 Feb-21-08 270 Improved x86 FreeBSD support. 271 Thanks to Bjrn Knig. 272 273 3.0.1 Feb-15-08 274 Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS. 275 Thanks to David Daney. 276 277 3.0.0 Feb-15-08 278 Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project. 279 Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat. 280 281 [10 years go by...] 282 283 1.20 Oct-5-98 284 Raffaele Sena produces ARM port. 285 286 1.19 Oct-5-98 287 Fixed x86 long double and long long return support. 288 m68k bug fixes from Andreas Schwab. 289 Patch for DU assembler compatibility for the Alpha from Richard 290 Henderson. 291 292 1.18 Apr-17-98 293 Bug fixes and MIPS configuration changes. 294 295 1.17 Feb-24-98 296 Bug fixes and m68k port from Andreas Schwab. PowerPC port from 297 Geoffrey Keating. Various bug x86, Sparc and MIPS bug fixes. 298 299 1.16 Feb-11-98 300 Richard Henderson produces Alpha port. 301 302 1.15 Dec-4-97 303 Fixed an n32 ABI bug. New libtool, auto* support. 304 305 1.14 May-13-97 306 libtool is now used to generate shared and static libraries. 307 Fixed a minor portability problem reported by Russ McManus 308 <mcmanr (a] eq.gs.com>. 309 310 1.13 Dec-2-96 311 Added --enable-purify-safety to keep Purify from complaining 312 about certain low level code. 313 Sparc fix for calling functions with < 6 args. 314 Linux x86 a.out fix. 315 316 1.12 Nov-22-96 317 Added missing ffi_type_void, needed for supporting void return 318 types. Fixed test case for non MIPS machines. Cygnus Support 319 is now Cygnus Solutions. 320 321 1.11 Oct-30-96 322 Added notes about GNU make. 323 324 1.10 Oct-29-96 325 Added configuration fix for non GNU compilers. 326 327 1.09 Oct-29-96 328 Added --enable-debug configure switch. Clean-ups based on LCLint 329 feedback. ffi_mips.h is always installed. Many configuration 330 fixes. Fixed ffitest.c for sparc builds. 331 332 1.08 Oct-15-96 333 Fixed n32 problem. Many clean-ups. 334 335 1.07 Oct-14-96 336 Gordon Irlam rewrites v8.S again. Bug fixes. 337 338 1.06 Oct-14-96 339 Gordon Irlam improved the sparc port. 340 341 1.05 Oct-14-96 342 Interface changes based on feedback. 343 344 1.04 Oct-11-96 345 Sparc port complete (modulo struct passing bug). 346 347 1.03 Oct-10-96 348 Passing struct args, and returning struct values works for 349 all architectures/calling conventions. Expanded tests. 350 351 1.02 Oct-9-96 352 Added SGI n32 support. Fixed bugs in both o32 and Linux support. 353 Added "make test". 354 355 1.01 Oct-8-96 356 Fixed float passing bug in mips version. Restructured some 357 of the code. Builds cleanly with SGI tools. 358 359 1.00 Oct-7-96 360 First release. No public announcement. 361 362 363 Authors & Credits 364 ================= 365 366 libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green (a] moxielogic.com>. 367 368 The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made 369 innumerable valuable contributions. See the ChangeLog file for 370 details. 371 372 Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free 373 gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines. 374 375 The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab 376 Thorup. 377 378 Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following 379 developers: 380 381 aarch64 Marcus Shawcroft, James Greenhalgh 382 alpha Richard Henderson 383 arm Raffaele Sena 384 blackfin Alexandre Keunecke I. de Mendonca 385 cris Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson 386 frv Anthony Green 387 ia64 Hans Boehm 388 m32r Kazuhiro Inaoka 389 m68k Andreas Schwab 390 m88k Miod Vallat 391 microblaze Nathan Rossi 392 mips Anthony Green, Casey Marshall 393 mips64 David Daney 394 moxie Anthony Green 395 nios ii Sandra Loosemore 396 pa Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler 397 powerpc Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler, 398 David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist 399 powerpc64 Jakub Jelinek 400 s390 Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand 401 sh Kaz Kojima 402 sh64 Kaz Kojima 403 sparc Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam 404 tile-gx/tilepro Walter Lee 405 vax Miod Vallat 406 x86 Anthony Green, Jon Beniston 407 x86-64 Bo Thorsen 408 xtensa Chris Zankel 409 410 Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of 411 stepping through the code and tracking down bugs. 412 413 Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and 414 configuration help. 415 416 Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi 417 interface. 418 419 Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite. 420 421 Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux. 422 423 The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate. I'm 424 happy to make corrections or additions upon request. 425 426 If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to the 427 author at green (a] moxielogic.com, or the project mailing list at 428 libffi-discuss (a] sourceware.org. 429