libffi/README

   1 This directory contains the libffi package, which is not part of GCC but
   2 shipped with GCC as convenience.
   3
   4 Status
   5 ======
   6
   7 libffi-3.0.9 was released on December 31, 2009. Check the libffi web
   8 page for updates: <URL:http://sourceware.org/libffi/>.
   9
  10
  11 What is libffi?
  12 ===============
  13
  14 Compilers for high level languages generate code that follow certain
  15 conventions. These conventions are necessary, in part, for separate
  16 compilation to work. One such convention is the "calling
  17 convention". The "calling convention" is essentially a set of
  18 assumptions made by the compiler about where function arguments will
  19 be found on entry to a function. A "calling convention" also specifies
  20 where the return value for a function is found.
  21
  22 Some programs may not know at the time of compilation what arguments
  23 are to be passed to a function. For instance, an interpreter may be
  24 told at run-time about the number and types of arguments used to call
  25 a given function. Libffi can be used in such programs to provide a
  26 bridge from the interpreter program to compiled code.
  27
  28 The libffi library provides a portable, high level programming
  29 interface to various calling conventions. This allows a programmer to
  30 call any function specified by a call interface description at run
  31 time.
  32
  33 FFI stands for Foreign Function Interface.  A foreign function
  34 interface is the popular name for the interface that allows code
  35 written in one language to call code written in another language. The
  36 libffi library really only provides the lowest, machine dependent
  37 layer of a fully featured foreign function interface. A layer must
  38 exist above libffi that handles type conversions for values passed
  39 between the two languages.
  40
  41
  42 Supported Platforms
  43 ===================
  44
  45 Libffi has been ported to many different platforms.
  46 For specific configuration details and testing status, please
  47 refer to the wiki page here:
  48
  49  http://www.moxielogic.org/wiki/index.php?title=Libffi_3.0.9
  50
  51 At the time of release, the following basic configurations have been
  52 tested:
  53
  54 |--------------+------------------|
  55 | Architecture | Operating System |
  56 |--------------+------------------|
  57 | Alpha        | Linux            |
  58 | ARM          | Linux            |
  59 | AVR32        | Linux            |
  60 | HPPA         | HPUX             |
  61 | IA-64        | Linux            |
  62 | MIPS         | IRIX             |
  63 | MIPS         | Linux            |
  64 | MIPS64       | Linux            |
  65 | PowerPC      | Linux            |
  66 | PowerPC      | Mac OSX          |
  67 | PowerPC      | FreeBSD          |
  68 | PowerPC64    | Linux            |
  69 | S390         | Linux            |
  70 | S390X        | Linux            |
  71 | SPARC        | Linux            |
  72 | SPARC        | Solaris          |
  73 | SPARC64      | Linux            |
  74 | SPARC64      | FreeBSD          |
  75 | X86          | FreeBSD          |
  76 | X86          | kFreeBSD         |
  77 | X86          | Linux            |
  78 | X86          | Mac OSX          |
  79 | X86          | OpenBSD          |
  80 | X86          | OS/2             |
  81 | X86          | Solaris          |
  82 | X86          | Windows/Cygwin   |
  83 | X86          | Windows/MingW    |
  84 | X86-64       | FreeBSD          |
  85 | X86-64       | Linux            |
  86 | X86-64       | OpenBSD          |
  87 |--------------+------------------|
  88
  89 Please send additional platform test results to
  90 libffi-discuss@sourceware.org and feel free to update the wiki page
  91 above.
  92
  93 Installing libffi
  94 =================
  95
  96 First you must configure the distribution for your particular
  97 system. Go to the directory you wish to build libffi in and run the
  98 "configure" program found in the root directory of the libffi source
  99 distribution.
 100
 101 You may want to tell configure where to install the libffi library and
 102 header files. To do that, use the --prefix configure switch.  Libffi
 103 will install under /usr/local by default.
 104
 105 If you want to enable extra run-time debugging checks use the the
 106 --enable-debug configure switch. This is useful when your program dies
 107 mysteriously while using libffi.
 108
 109 Another useful configure switch is --enable-purify-safety. Using this
 110 will add some extra code which will suppress certain warnings when you
 111 are using Purify with libffi. Only use this switch when using
 112 Purify, as it will slow down the library.
 113
 114 It's also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with
 115 Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler.  In this case, use the msvcc.sh
 116 wrapper script during configuration like so:
 117
 118 path/to/configure --enable-shared --enable-static \
 119         CC=path/to/msvcc.sh LD=link \
 120         CPP=\"cl -nologo -EP\"
 121
 122 Configure has many other options. Use "configure --help" to see them all.
 123
 124 Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using
 125 GNU make.  You can ftp GNU make from prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu.
 126
 127 To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make check".
 128 This will require that you have DejaGNU installed.
 129
 130 To install the library and header files, type "make install".
 131
 132
 133 History
 134 =======
 135
 136 See the ChangeLog files for details.
 137
 138 3.0.10 ???-??-??
 139         Fix the N64 build on mips-sgi-irix6.5.
 140         Testsuite fixes for Tru64 Unix.
 141         Enable builds with Microsoft's compiler.
 142         Enable x86 builds with Sun's compiler.
 143
 144 3.0.9 Dec-31-09
 145         Add AVR32 and win64 ports.  Add ARM softfp support.
 146         Many fixes for AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, *BSD.
 147         Several PowerPC and x86-64 bug fixes.
 148         Build DLL for windows.
 149
 150 3.0.8 Dec-19-08
 151         Add *BSD, BeOS, and PA-Linux support.
 152
 153 3.0.7 Nov-11-08
 154         Fix for ppc FreeBSD.
 155         (thanks to Andreas Tobler)
 156
 157 3.0.6 Jul-17-08
 158         Fix for closures on sh.
 159         Mark the sh/sh64 stack as non-executable.
 160         (both thanks to Kaz Kojima)
 161
 162 3.0.5 Apr-3-08
 163         Fix libffi.pc file.
 164         Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users.
 165         Fix x86 closure bug.
 166
 167 3.0.4 Feb-24-08
 168         Fix x86 OpenBSD configury.
 169
 170 3.0.3 Feb-22-08
 171         Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and
 172         x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Björn König and Andreas Tobler.
 173         Clean up test instruction in README.
 174
 175 3.0.2 Feb-21-08
 176         Improved x86 FreeBSD support.
 177         Thanks to Björn König.
 178
 179 3.0.1 Feb-15-08
 180         Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS.
 181         Thanks to David Daney.
 182
 183 3.0.0 Feb-15-08
 184         Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project.
 185         Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat.
 186
 187   [10 years go by...]
 188
 189 1.20 Oct-5-98
 190         Raffaele Sena produces ARM port.
 191
 192 1.19 Oct-5-98
 193         Fixed x86 long double and long long return support.
 194         m68k bug fixes from Andreas Schwab.
 195         Patch for DU assembler compatibility for the Alpha from Richard
 196         Henderson.
 197
 198 1.18 Apr-17-98
 199         Bug fixes and MIPS configuration changes.
 200
 201 1.17 Feb-24-98
 202         Bug fixes and m68k port from Andreas Schwab. PowerPC port from
 203         Geoffrey Keating. Various bug x86, Sparc and MIPS bug fixes.
 204
 205 1.16 Feb-11-98
 206         Richard Henderson produces Alpha port.
 207
 208 1.15 Dec-4-97
 209         Fixed an n32 ABI bug. New libtool, auto* support.
 210
 211 1.14 May-13-97
 212         libtool is now used to generate shared and static libraries.
 213         Fixed a minor portability problem reported by Russ McManus
 214         <mcmanr@eq.gs.com>.
 215
 216 1.13 Dec-2-96
 217         Added --enable-purify-safety to keep Purify from complaining
 218         about certain low level code.
 219         Sparc fix for calling functions with < 6 args.
 220         Linux x86 a.out fix.
 221
 222 1.12 Nov-22-96
 223         Added missing ffi_type_void, needed for supporting void return
 224         types. Fixed test case for non MIPS machines. Cygnus Support
 225         is now Cygnus Solutions.
 226
 227 1.11 Oct-30-96
 228         Added notes about GNU make.
 229
 230 1.10 Oct-29-96
 231         Added configuration fix for non GNU compilers.
 232
 233 1.09 Oct-29-96
 234         Added --enable-debug configure switch. Clean-ups based on LCLint
 235         feedback. ffi_mips.h is always installed. Many configuration
 236         fixes. Fixed ffitest.c for sparc builds.
 237
 238 1.08 Oct-15-96
 239         Fixed n32 problem. Many clean-ups.
 240
 241 1.07 Oct-14-96
 242         Gordon Irlam rewrites v8.S again. Bug fixes.
 243
 244 1.06 Oct-14-96
 245         Gordon Irlam improved the sparc port.
 246
 247 1.05 Oct-14-96
 248         Interface changes based on feedback.
 249
 250 1.04 Oct-11-96
 251         Sparc port complete (modulo struct passing bug).
 252
 253 1.03 Oct-10-96
 254         Passing struct args, and returning struct values works for
 255         all architectures/calling conventions. Expanded tests.
 256
 257 1.02 Oct-9-96
 258         Added SGI n32 support. Fixed bugs in both o32 and Linux support.
 259         Added "make test".
 260
 261 1.01 Oct-8-96
 262         Fixed float passing bug in mips version. Restructured some
 263         of the code. Builds cleanly with SGI tools.
 264
 265 1.00 Oct-7-96
 266         First release. No public announcement.
 267
 268
 269 Authors & Credits
 270 =================
 271
 272 libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green@redhat.com>.
 273
 274 The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made
 275 innumerable valuable contributions.  See the ChangeLog file for
 276 details.
 277
 278 Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free
 279 gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines.
 280
 281 The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab
 282 Thorup.
 283
 284 Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following
 285 developers:
 286
 287 alpha           Richard Henderson
 288 arm             Raffaele Sena
 289 cris            Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson
 290 frv             Anthony Green
 291 ia64            Hans Boehm
 292 m32r            Kazuhiro Inaoka
 293 m68k            Andreas Schwab
 294 mips            Anthony Green, Casey Marshall
 295 mips64          David Daney
 296 pa              Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler
 297 powerpc         Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler,
 298                          David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist
 299 powerpc64       Jakub Jelinek
 300 s390            Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand
 301 sh              Kaz Kojima
 302 sh64            Kaz Kojima
 303 sparc           Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam
 304 x86             Anthony Green, Jon Beniston
 305 x86-64          Bo Thorsen
 306
 307 Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of
 308 stepping through the code and tracking down bugs.
 309
 310 Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and
 311 configuration help.
 312
 313 Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi
 314 interface.
 315
 316 Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite.
 317
 318 Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux.
 319
 320 The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate.  I'm
 321 happy to make corrections or additions upon request.
 322
 323 If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to
 324 green@redhat.com.