libffi

Status

libffi-3.8.0 was released on August 8, 2026.

What is libffi?

Compilers for high level languages generate code that follow certain conventions. These conventions are necessary, in part, for separate compilation to work. One such convention is the "calling convention". The "calling convention" is essentially a set of assumptions made by the compiler about where function arguments will be found on entry to a function. A "calling convention" also specifies where the return value for a function is found.

Some programs may not know at the time of compilation what arguments are to be passed to a function. For instance, an interpreter may be told at run-time about the number and types of arguments used to call a given function. Libffi can be used in such programs to provide a bridge from the interpreter program to compiled code.

The libffi library provides a portable, high level programming interface to various calling conventions. This allows a programmer to call any function specified by a call interface description at run time.

FFI stands for Foreign Function Interface. A foreign function interface is the popular name for the interface that allows code written in one language to call code written in another language. The libffi library really only provides the lowest, machine dependent layer of a fully featured foreign function interface. A layer must exist above libffi that handles type conversions for values passed between the two languages.

Supported Platforms

Libffi has been ported to many different platforms.

At the time of release, the following basic configurations have been tested:

Architecture	Operating System	Compiler
AArch64 (ARM64)	iOS	Clang
AArch64	Linux	GCC
AArch64	Windows	MSVC
Alpha	Linux	GCC
Alpha	Tru64	GCC
ARC	Linux	GCC
ARC32	Linux	GCC
ARC64	Linux	GCC
ARM	Linux	GCC
ARM	iOS	GCC
ARM	Windows	MSVC
AVR32	Linux	GCC
Blackfin	uClinux	GCC
CSKY	Linux	GCC
HPPA	HPUX	GCC
HPPA64	HPUX	GCC
KVX	Linux	GCC
IA-64	Linux	GCC
LoongArch32	Linux	GCC
LoongArch64	Linux	GCC
M68K	FreeMiNT	GCC
M68K	Linux	GCC
M68K	RTEMS	GCC
M88K	OpenBSD/mvme88k	GCC
Meta	Linux	GCC
MicroBlaze	Linux	GCC
MIPS	IRIX	GCC
MIPS	Linux	GCC
MIPS	RTEMS	GCC
MIPS64	Linux	GCC
Moxie	Bare metal	GCC
OpenRISC	Linux	GCC
PowerPC 32-bit	AIX	GCC
PowerPC 32-bit	AIX	IBM XL C
PowerPC 64-bit	AIX	IBM XL C
PowerPC	AMIGA	GCC
PowerPC	Linux	GCC
PowerPC	Mac OSX	GCC
PowerPC	FreeBSD	GCC
PowerPC 64-bit	FreeBSD	GCC
PowerPC 64-bit	Linux ELFv1	GCC
PowerPC 64-bit	Linux ELFv2	GCC
RISC-V 32-bit	Linux	GCC
RISC-V 64-bit	Linux	GCC
S390	Linux	GCC
S390X	Linux	GCC
SH3	Linux	GCC
SH4	Linux	GCC
SH5/SH64	Linux	GCC
SPARC	Linux	GCC
SPARC	Solaris	GCC
SPARC	Solaris	Oracle Solaris Studio C
SPARC64	Linux	GCC
SPARC64	FreeBSD	GCC
SPARC64	Solaris	Oracle Solaris Studio C
TILE-Gx/TILEPro	Linux	GCC
VAX	OpenBSD/vax	GCC
WASM32	Emscripten	EMCC
WASM64	Emscripten	EMCC
X86	FreeBSD	GCC
X86	GNU HURD	GCC
X86	Interix	GCC
X86	kFreeBSD	GCC
X86	Linux	GCC
X86	OpenBSD	GCC
X86	OS/2	GCC
X86	Solaris	GCC
X86	Solaris	Oracle Solaris Studio C
X86	Windows/Cygwin	GCC
X86	Windows/MinGW	GCC
X86-64	DragonFly BSD	GCC
X86-64	FreeBSD	GCC
X86-64	Linux	GCC
X86-64	Linux/x32	GCC
X86-64	OpenBSD	GCC
X86-64	Solaris	Oracle Solaris Studio C
X86-64	Windows/Cygwin	GCC
X86-64	Windows/MinGW	GCC
X86-64	Mac OSX	GCC
Xtensa	Linux	GCC

Please send additional platform test results to [email protected].

Installing libffi

First you must configure the distribution for your particular system. Go to the directory you wish to build libffi in and run the "configure" program found in the root directory of the libffi source distribution. Note that building libffi requires a C99 compatible compiler. If you're building libffi directly from git hosted sources, configure won't exist yet; run ./autogen.sh first. This will require that you install autoconf, automake, libtool and texinfo.

You may want to tell configure where to install the libffi library and header files. To do that, use the --prefix configure switch. Libffi will install under /usr/local by default.

If you want to enable extra run-time debugging checks use the the --enable-debug configure switch. This is useful when your program dies mysteriously while using libffi.

Another useful configure switch is --enable-purify-safety. Using this will add some extra code which will suppress certain warnings when you are using Purify with libffi. Only use this switch when using Purify, as it will slow down the library.

If you don't want to build documentation, use the --disable-docs configure switch.

It's also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with Microsoft's Visual C++ compiler. In this case, use the msvcc.sh wrapper script during configuration like so:

path/to/configure CC=path/to/msvcc.sh CXX=path/to/msvcc.sh LD=link CPP="cl -nologo -EP" CXXCPP="cl -nologo -EP" CPPFLAGS="-DFFI_BUILDING_DLL"

For 64-bit Windows builds, use CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64" and CXX="path/to/msvcc.sh -m64". You may also need to specify --build appropriately.

It is also possible to build libffi on Windows platforms with the LLVM project's clang-cl compiler, like below:

path/to/configure CC="path/to/msvcc.sh -clang-cl" CXX="path/to/msvcc.sh -clang-cl" LD=link CPP="clang-cl -EP"

When building with MSVC under a MingW environment, you may need to remove the line in configure that sets 'fix_srcfile_path' to a 'cygpath' command. ('cygpath' is not present in MingW, and is not required when using MingW-style paths.)

To build static library for ARM64 with MSVC using visual studio solution, msvc_build folder have aarch64/Ffi_staticLib.sln required header files in aarch64/aarch64_include/

SPARC Solaris builds require the use of the GNU assembler and linker. Point AS and LD environment variables at those tool prior to configuration.

For iOS builds, the libffi.xcodeproj Xcode project is available.

Configure has many other options. Use configure --help to see them all.

Once configure has finished, type "make". Note that you must be using GNU make. You can ftp GNU make from ftp.gnu.org:/pub/gnu/make .

To ensure that libffi is working as advertised, type "make check". This will require that you have DejaGNU installed.

To install the library and header files, type make install.

History

See the git log for details at http://github.com/libffi/libffi.

TBD
    Fix aarch64 and arm big-endian closures receiving garbage
      sub-word integer and scalar-float arguments, and aarch64
      big-endian sub-word/float return values, by offsetting to the
      least-significant bytes of the register or stack slot
      (#1012, closes #1011 and #675).

3.8.0 August-8-2026
    Add FFI_TYPE_VECTOR (SIMD) type support with libffi-computed
      layout, for aarch64 and x86-64 (#1000, closes #773).
    Add ffi_call_plan_size to report the total memory a reusable call
      plan owns, for embedders that account for the memory held by
      long-lived plans.
    Add powerpc64 ELFv2 _Complex long double support for both
      IBM-128 (double-double) and IEEE-128 formats (#1003, closes #1001).
    Fix powerpc64 big-endian ELFv2 closures returning 5-, 6-, or
      7-byte structs: missing return jump-table entries produced a
      wrong result and leaked a libffi code pointer.
    Fix ia64 return-value jump-table desync after the FFI_TYPE_LAST
      bump, which corrupted small-struct and HFA returns.
    Fix powerpc Darwin closure returns broken by #951 (#1002).
    Return small (1, 2, 4 or 8 byte) structs in registers on the i386
      FreeBSD and OpenBSD targets, matching the platform ABI and
      fixing a segfault on struct returns through ffi_call and closures.
    Cache the static trampoline "unsupported" result on hosts whose
      page size exceeds the trampoline table mapping, avoiding
      redundant re-initialization on every closure allocation
      (e.g. 64K-page aarch64).

3.7.1 July-10-2026
    Fix aarch64 ffi_call memory corruption when passing many large
      structs by value.
    Fix i386 thiscall/fastcall closure stack cleanup for 64-bit
      integer and struct arguments.