libffi/README

   1 Status
   2 ======
   3
   4 libffi-3.0.11 was released on *****************. 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_3.0.11
  47
  48 At the time of release, the following basic configurations have been
  49 tested:
  50
  51 |--------------+------------------|
  52 | Architecture | Operating System |
  53 |--------------+------------------|
  54 | Alpha        | Linux            |
  55 | Alpha        | Tru64            |
  56 | ARM          | Linux            |
  57 | ARM          | iOS              |
  58 | AVR32        | Linux            |
  59 | HPPA         | HPUX             |
  60 | IA-64        | Linux            |
  61 | M68K         | RTEMS            |
  62 | MIPS         | IRIX             |
  63 | MIPS         | Linux            |
  64 | MIPS         | RTEMS            |
  65 | MIPS64       | Linux            |
  66 | PowerPC      | AMIGA            |
  67 | PowerPC      | Linux            |
  68 | PowerPC      | Mac OSX          |
  69 | PowerPC      | FreeBSD          |
  70 | PowerPC64    | Linux            |
  71 | S390         | Linux            |
  72 | S390X        | Linux            |
  73 | SPARC        | Linux            |
  74 | SPARC        | Solaris          |
  75 | SPARC64      | Linux            |
  76 | SPARC64      | FreeBSD          |
  77 | X86          | FreeBSD          |
  78 | X86          | Interix          |
  79 | X86          | kFreeBSD         |
  80 | X86          | Linux            |
  81 | X86          | Linux/x32        |
  82 | X86          | Mac OSX          |
  83 | X86          | OpenBSD          |
  84 | X86          | OS/2             |
  85 | X86          | Solaris          |
  86 | X86          | Windows/Cygwin   |
  87 | X86          | Windows/MingW    |
  88 | X86-64       | FreeBSD          |
  89 | X86-64       | Linux            |
  90 | X86-64       | OpenBSD          |
  91 | X86-64       | Windows/MingW    |
  92 |--------------+------------------|
  93
  94 Please send additional platform test results to
  95 libffi-discuss@sourceware.org and feel free to update the wiki page
  96 above.
  97
  98 Installing libffi
  99 =================
 100
 101 First you must configure the distribution for your particular
 102 system. Go to the directory you wish to build libffi in and run the
 103 "configure" program found in the root directory of the libffi source
 104 distribution.
 105
 106 You may want to tell configure where to install the libffi library and
 107 header files. To do that, use the --prefix configure switch.  Libffi
 108 will install under /usr/local by default.
 109
 110 If you want to enable extra run-time debugging checks use the the
 111 --enable-debug configure switch. This is useful when your program dies
 112 mysteriously while using libffi.
 113
 114 Another useful configure switch is --enable-purify-safety. Using this
 115 will add some extra code which will suppress certain warnings when you
 116 are using Purify with libffi. Only use this switch when using
 117 Purify, as it will slow down the library.
 118
 119 It's also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with
 120 Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler.  In this case, use the msvcc.sh
 121 wrapper script during configuration like so:
 122
 123 path/to/configure CC=path/to/msvcc.sh LD=link CPP=\"cl -nologo -EP\"
 124
 125 For 64-bit Windows builds, use CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64".
 126 You may also need to specify --build appropriately. When building with MSVC
 127 under a MingW environment, you may need to remove the line in configure
 128 that sets 'fix_srcfile_path' to a 'cygpath' command. ('cygpath' is not
 129 present in MingW, and is not required when using MingW-style paths.)
 130
 131 For iOS builds, refer to the build-ios.sh script for guidance.
 132
 133 Configure has many other options. Use "configure --help" to see them all.
 134
 135 Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using
 136 GNU make.  You can ftp GNU make from prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu.
 137
 138 To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make check".
 139 This will require that you have DejaGNU installed.
 140
 141 To install the library and header files, type "make install".
 142
 143
 144 History
 145 =======
 146
 147 See the ChangeLog files for details.
 148
 149 3.0.11 MMM-DD-YY
 150         Lots of build fixes.
 151         Add Amiga newer MacOS support.
 152         Add Linux/x32 support.
 153         Add thiscall and fastcall support on Windows.
 154         Fix Octeon and MC68881 support.
 155         Fix code pessimizations.
 156
 157 3.0.10 Aug-23-11
 158         Add support for Apple's iOS.
 159         Add support for ARM VFP ABI.
 160         Add RTEMS support for MIPS and M68K.
 161         Fix instruction cache clearing problems on
 162           ARM and SPARC.
 163         Fix the N64 build on mips-sgi-irix6.5.
 164         Enable builds with Microsoft's compiler.
 165         Enable x86 builds with Oracle's Solaris compiler.
 166         Fix support for calling code compiled with Oracle's Sparc
 167           Solaris compiler.
 168         Testsuite fixes for Tru64 Unix.
 169         Additional platform support.
 170
 171 3.0.9 Dec-31-09
 172         Add AVR32 and win64 ports.  Add ARM softfp support.
 173         Many fixes for AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD.
 174         Several PowerPC and x86-64 bug fixes.
 175         Build DLL for windows.
 176
 177 3.0.8 Dec-19-08
 178         Add *BSD, BeOS, and PA-Linux support.
 179
 180 3.0.7 Nov-11-08
 181         Fix for ppc FreeBSD.
 182         (thanks to Andreas Tobler)
 183
 184 3.0.6 Jul-17-08
 185         Fix for closures on sh.
 186         Mark the sh/sh64 stack as non-executable.
 187         (both thanks to Kaz Kojima)
 188
 189 3.0.5 Apr-3-08
 190         Fix libffi.pc file.
 191         Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users.
 192         Fix x86 closure bug.
 193
 194 3.0.4 Feb-24-08
 195         Fix x86 OpenBSD configury.
 196
 197 3.0.3 Feb-22-08
 198         Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and
 199         x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Björn König and Andreas Tobler.
 200         Clean up test instruction in README.
 201
 202 3.0.2 Feb-21-08
 203         Improved x86 FreeBSD support.
 204         Thanks to Björn König.
 205
 206 3.0.1 Feb-15-08
 207         Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS.
 208         Thanks to David Daney.
 209
 210 3.0.0 Feb-15-08
 211         Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project.
 212         Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat.
 213
 214   [10 years go by...]
 215
 216 1.20 Oct-5-98
 217         Raffaele Sena produces ARM port.
 218
 219 1.19 Oct-5-98
 220         Fixed x86 long double and long long return support.
 221         m68k bug fixes from Andreas Schwab.
 222         Patch for DU assembler compatibility for the Alpha from Richard
 223         Henderson.
 224
 225 1.18 Apr-17-98
 226         Bug fixes and MIPS configuration changes.
 227
 228 1.17 Feb-24-98
 229         Bug fixes and m68k port from Andreas Schwab. PowerPC port from
 230         Geoffrey Keating. Various bug x86, Sparc and MIPS bug fixes.
 231
 232 1.16 Feb-11-98
 233         Richard Henderson produces Alpha port.
 234
 235 1.15 Dec-4-97
 236         Fixed an n32 ABI bug. New libtool, auto* support.
 237
 238 1.14 May-13-97
 239         libtool is now used to generate shared and static libraries.
 240         Fixed a minor portability problem reported by Russ McManus
 241         <mcmanr@eq.gs.com>.
 242
 243 1.13 Dec-2-96
 244         Added --enable-purify-safety to keep Purify from complaining
 245         about certain low level code.
 246         Sparc fix for calling functions with < 6 args.
 247         Linux x86 a.out fix.
 248
 249 1.12 Nov-22-96
 250         Added missing ffi_type_void, needed for supporting void return
 251         types. Fixed test case for non MIPS machines. Cygnus Support
 252         is now Cygnus Solutions.
 253
 254 1.11 Oct-30-96
 255         Added notes about GNU make.
 256
 257 1.10 Oct-29-96
 258         Added configuration fix for non GNU compilers.
 259
 260 1.09 Oct-29-96
 261         Added --enable-debug configure switch. Clean-ups based on LCLint
 262         feedback. ffi_mips.h is always installed. Many configuration
 263         fixes. Fixed ffitest.c for sparc builds.
 264
 265 1.08 Oct-15-96
 266         Fixed n32 problem. Many clean-ups.
 267
 268 1.07 Oct-14-96
 269         Gordon Irlam rewrites v8.S again. Bug fixes.
 270
 271 1.06 Oct-14-96
 272         Gordon Irlam improved the sparc port.
 273
 274 1.05 Oct-14-96
 275         Interface changes based on feedback.
 276
 277 1.04 Oct-11-96
 278         Sparc port complete (modulo struct passing bug).
 279
 280 1.03 Oct-10-96
 281         Passing struct args, and returning struct values works for
 282         all architectures/calling conventions. Expanded tests.
 283
 284 1.02 Oct-9-96
 285         Added SGI n32 support. Fixed bugs in both o32 and Linux support.
 286         Added "make test".
 287
 288 1.01 Oct-8-96
 289         Fixed float passing bug in mips version. Restructured some
 290         of the code. Builds cleanly with SGI tools.
 291
 292 1.00 Oct-7-96
 293         First release. No public announcement.
 294
 295
 296 Authors & Credits
 297 =================
 298
 299 libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green@redhat.com>.
 300
 301 The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made
 302 innumerable valuable contributions.  See the ChangeLog file for
 303 details.
 304
 305 Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free
 306 gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines.
 307
 308 The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab
 309 Thorup.
 310
 311 Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following
 312 developers:
 313
 314 alpha           Richard Henderson
 315 arm             Raffaele Sena
 316 cris            Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson
 317 frv             Anthony Green
 318 ia64            Hans Boehm
 319 m32r            Kazuhiro Inaoka
 320 m68k            Andreas Schwab
 321 mips            Anthony Green, Casey Marshall
 322 mips64          David Daney
 323 pa              Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler
 324 powerpc         Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler,
 325                          David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist
 326 powerpc64       Jakub Jelinek
 327 s390            Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand
 328 sh              Kaz Kojima
 329 sh64            Kaz Kojima
 330 sparc           Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam
 331 x86             Anthony Green, Jon Beniston
 332 x86-64          Bo Thorsen
 333
 334 Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of
 335 stepping through the code and tracking down bugs.
 336
 337 Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and
 338 configuration help.
 339
 340 Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi
 341 interface.
 342
 343 Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite.
 344
 345 Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux.
 346
 347 The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate.  I'm
 348 happy to make corrections or additions upon request.
 349
 350 If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to the
 351 author at green@moxielogic.com, or the project mailing list at
 352 libffi-discuss@sourceware.org.