Lloyd Pique | 457ba79 | 2015-10-27 14:32:21 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 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@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 Björn König 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 Björn König. |
| 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@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@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@moxielogic.com, or the project mailing list at |
| 447 | libffi-discuss@sourceware.org. |