Developer(s) | Anthony Green |
---|---|
Initial release | October 7, 1996 |
Stable release | |
Repository | |
Written in | C, Assembly language |
Operating system | Unix-like, Microsoft Windows, OS X, iOS, bare metal |
Type | Runtime library |
License | MIT License [2] |
Website | sourceware |
libffi is a foreign function interface library. It provides a C programming language interface for calling natively compiled functions given information about the target function at run time instead of compile time. It also implements the opposite functionality: libffi can produce a pointer to a function that can accept and decode any combination of arguments defined at run time.
libffi is most often used as a bridging technology between compiled and interpreted language implementations. libffi may also be used to implement plug-ins, where the plug-in's function signatures are not known at the time of creating the host application.
Notable users include Python, Haskell, Dalvik, F-Script, PyPy, PyObjC, RubyCocoa, JRuby, Rubinius, MacRuby, gcj, GNU Smalltalk, IcedTea, Cycript, Pawn, Java Native Access, Common Lisp (via CFFI), Racket, [3] Embeddable Common Lisp and Mozilla. [4]
On Mac OS X, libffi is commonly used with BridgeSupport, which provides programming language neutral descriptions of framework interfaces, and Nu which binds direct Objective-C access from Lisp.
libffi has been widely ported and is released under a MIT license.
Although the C programming language is ubiquitous among platforms, the ways function calls are implemented in machine code – the calling convention – vary. When one wants to load a subroutine dynamically at run-time, a knowledge of these conventions is required.
libffi has knowledge of the calling convention on many platforms (processor–OS combinations). Its C API, which is shared on all builds of libffi regardless of platform, abstracts over the complexity of loading code on different platforms. In addition to regular functions, it also supports C-style variadic functions.
The C calling convention is not only used by the C language: due to the amount of existing code written in C, most newer compiled languages also allow writing and calling functions in such a convention. As a result, libffi is able to interact with some functions written in these languages too.
This section is missing information about year of gencall.(January 2021) |
libffi, originally developed by Anthony Green, was inspired by the Gencall library from Silicon Graphics. Gencall was developed by Gianni Mariani, then employed by SGI, for the purpose of allowing calls to functions by address and creating a call frame for the particular calling convention (MIPS O32). Anthony Green refined the idea and extended it to other architectures and calling conventions and open sourcing libffi.
The libffi library is useful in building a bridge between interpreted and natively compiled code. Some notable users include:
Common Lisp (CL) is a dialect of the Lisp programming language, published in American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard document ANSI INCITS 226-1994 (S2018). The Common Lisp HyperSpec, a hyperlinked HTML version, has been derived from the ANSI Common Lisp standard.
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In programming and software design, binding is an application programming interface (API) that provides glue code specifically made to allow a programming language to use a foreign library or operating system service.
A foreign function interface (FFI) is a mechanism by which a program written in one programming language can call routines or make use of services written or compiled in another one. An FFI is often used in contexts where calls are made into binary dynamic-link library.
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LispWorks is computer software, a proprietary implementation and integrated development environment (IDE) for the programming language Common Lisp. LispWorks was developed by the UK software company Harlequin Ltd., and first published in 1989. Harlequin ultimately spun off its Lisp division as Xanalys Ltd., which took over management and rights to LispWorks. In January 2005, the Xanalys Lisp team formed LispWorks Ltd. to market, develop, and support the software.
Java Native Access (JNA) is a community-developed library that provides Java programs easy access to native shared libraries without using the Java Native Interface (JNI). JNA's design aims to provide native access in a natural way with a minimum of effort. Unlike JNI, no boilerplate or generated glue code is required.
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Java bytecode is the instruction set of the Java virtual machine (JVM), the language to which Java and other JVM-compatible source code is compiled. Each instruction is represented by a single byte, hence the name bytecode, making it a compact form of data.
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