Foreign Function Interface - Examples

Examples

Examples of FFIs include:

  • Ada language bindings, allowing not only to call foreign functions but also to export its functions and methods to be called from non-Ada code.
  • C++ has a trivial FFI with C, as the languages share a significant common subset. The primary effect of the extern "C" declaration in C++ is to disable name mangling.
  • JNI, which provides an interface between Java and C/C++, the preferred systems language on most systems where Java is deployed. JNA provide an interface with native libraries without having to write glue code.
  • CNI, alternative to JNI used in the GNU compiler environment.
  • The FFIs of Common Lisp and Haskell
  • The major dynamic languages, such as Python, Perl, Tcl, and Ruby, all provide easy access to native code written in C/C++ (or any other language obeying C/C++ calling conventions).
    • Python additionally provides the ctypes module, which can load C functions from shared libraries/DLLs on-the-fly and translate simple data types automatically between Python and C semantics. For example:
import ctypes libc = ctypes.CDLL( '/lib/libc.so.6' ) # under Linux/Unix t = libc.time(None) # equivalent C code: t = time(NULL) print t
  • P/Invoke, which provides an interface between the Microsoft Common Language Runtime and native code.
  • Racket has a native FFI based heavily on macros that enables importing arbitrary shared libraries dynamically.
  • Factor has FFIs for C, Fortran, Objective-C, and Windows COM; all of these enable importing and calling arbitrary shared libraries dynamically.
  • Visual Basic has a declarative syntax that allows it to call non-Unicode C functions.
  • One of the bases of the Component Object Model is a common interface format, which natively uses the same types as Visual Basic for strings and arrays.
  • GWT, in which Java is compiled to JavaScript, has a FFI called JSNI which allows Java source to call arbitrary JavaScript functions, and for JavaScript to call back into Java.
  • LuaJIT, a just-in-time implementation of Lua, has a FFI that allows "calling external C functions and using C data structures from pure Lua code".
  • PhoneGap (was called by the name Apache Callback, but now Apache Cordova) is a platform for building native mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Additionally has FFIs via JavaScript callback functions for access to methods and properties of mobile phone's native features including Accelerometer, Camera (also PhotoLibrary and SavedPhotoAlbum), Compass, Storage (SQL database and localStorage), Notification, Media and Capture (playing and recording or audio and video), File, Contacts (address book), Events, Device and Connection information.,, PhoneGap

In addition, many FFIs can be generated automatically: for example, SWIG. However, in the case of an extension language a semantic inversion of the relationship of guest and host can occur, when a smaller body of extension language is the guest invoking services in the larger body of host language, such as writing a small plugin for GIMP .

Read more about this topic:  Foreign Function Interface

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