libffcall ☆

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Description:
GNU Foreign Function Interface library

Type: Formula | Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Developer tools

Tags: c-library ffi gnu development language-implementation

Install: brew install libffcall

About:
Libffcall is a GNU library that provides an interface for calling arbitrary C functions dynamically at runtime. It enables programs to build and call native machine code functions from memory, which is essential for implementing foreign function interfaces in higher-level languages. Its core value is providing low-level machinery for language implementers needing to interface with C libraries.

Key Features:

Dynamic function call construction and execution
Support for multiple architectures (x86, ARM, PowerPC, etc.)
Trampoline mechanism for closures and callbacks
Low-level assembly routines for maximum performance

Use Cases:

Building interpreters for dynamic languages that need to call C libraries
Implementing callback mechanisms in native extensions
Creating Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers that interface with system APIs

Alternatives:

libffi – Libffcall is GNU's alternative to libffi; both provide similar functionality for foreign function calls, though libffi is often more widely adopted in cross-platform projects.
ctypes (Python) – A higher-level FFI library built into Python; Libffcall provides the low-level assembly primitives that such high-level wrappers might rely on.

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Sep 14, 2025 3:16am		0	VERSION_BUMP	dd4216c0
Sep 13, 2024 2:29pm		0	VERSION_BUMP	1387b12d