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+Status
+======
+
+libffi-3.0.5 was released on April 3, 2008. Check the libffi web
+page for updates: <URL:http://sourceware.org/libffi/>.
+
+
+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 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, although this
+release was only tested on:
+
+     arm oabi linux
+     arm eabi linux
+     hppa linux
+     mips o32 linux (little endian)
+     powerpc darwin
+     powerpc64 linux
+     sparc solaris
+     sparc64 solaris
+     x86 cygwin
+     x86 darwin
+     x86 freebsd
+     x86 linux
+     x86 openbsd
+     x86-64 darwin
+     x86-64 linux
+     x86-64 OS X
+     x86-64 freebsd
+     
+Please send additional platform test results to
+libffi-discuss@sourceware.org.
+
+Installing libffi
+=================
+
+[Note: before actually performing any of these installation steps,
+ you may wish to read the "Platform Specific Notes" below.]
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu.
+
+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".
+
+
+Platform Specific Notes
+=======================
+
+	MIPS - Irix 5.3 & 6.x
+	---------------------
+
+Irix 6.2 and better supports three different calling conventions: o32,
+n32 and n64. Currently, libffi only supports both o32 and n32 under
+Irix 6.x, but only o32 under Irix 5.3. Libffi will automatically be
+configured for whichever calling convention it was built for.
+
+By default, the configure script will try to build libffi with the GNU
+development tools. To build libffi with the SGI development tools, set
+the environment variable CC to either "cc -32" or "cc -n32" before
+running configure under Irix 6.x (depending on whether you want an o32
+or n32 library), or just "cc" for Irix 5.3.
+
+With the n32 calling convention, when returning structures smaller
+than 16 bytes, be sure to provide an RVALUE that is 8 byte aligned.
+Here's one way of forcing this:
+
+	double struct_storage[2];
+	my_small_struct *s = (my_small_struct *) struct_storage;  
+	/* Use s for RVALUE */
+
+If you don't do this you are liable to get spurious bus errors. 
+
+"long long" values are not supported yet.
+
+You must use GNU Make to build libffi on SGI platforms.
+
+
+	PowerPC System V ABI
+	--------------------
+
+There are two `System V ABI's which libffi implements for PowerPC.
+They differ only in how small structures are returned from functions.
+
+In the FFI_SYSV version, structures that are 8 bytes or smaller are
+returned in registers.  This is what GCC does when it is configured
+for solaris, and is what the System V ABI I have (dated September
+1995) says.
+
+In the FFI_GCC_SYSV version, all structures are returned the same way:
+by passing a pointer as the first argument to the function.  This is
+what GCC does when it is configured for linux or a generic sysv
+target.
+
+EGCS 1.0.1 (and probably other versions of EGCS/GCC) also has a
+inconsistency with the SysV ABI: When a procedure is called with many
+floating-point arguments, some of them get put on the stack.  They are
+all supposed to be stored in double-precision format, even if they are
+only single-precision, but EGCS stores single-precision arguments as
+single-precision anyway.  This causes one test to fail (the `many
+arguments' test).
+
+
+History
+=======
+
+3.0.5 Apr-3-08
+        Fix libffi.pc file.
+	Fix #define ARM for IcedTea users.
+	Fix x86 closure bug.
+
+3.0.4 Feb-24-08
+        Fix x86 OpenBSD configury.
+
+3.0.3 Feb-22-08
+        Enable x86 OpenBSD thanks to Thomas Heller, and
+	x86-64 FreeBSD thanks to Björn König and Andreas Tobler.
+	Clean up test instruction in README.
+
+3.0.2 Feb-21-08
+        Improved x86 FreeBSD support.
+	Thanks to Björn König.
+
+3.0.1 Feb-15-08
+        Fix instruction cache flushing bug on MIPS.
+	Thanks to David Daney.
+
+3.0.0 Feb-15-08
+        Many changes, mostly thanks to the GCC project.
+	Cygnus Solutions is now Red Hat.
+
+  [10 years go by...]
+
+1.20 Oct-5-98
+	Raffaele Sena produces ARM port.
+
+1.19 Oct-5-98
+	Fixed x86 long double and long long return support.
+	m68k bug fixes from Andreas Schwab.
+	Patch for DU assembler compatibility for the Alpha from Richard
+	Henderson.
+
+1.18 Apr-17-98
+	Bug fixes and MIPS configuration changes.
+
+1.17 Feb-24-98
+	Bug fixes and m68k port from Andreas Schwab. PowerPC port from
+	Geoffrey Keating. Various bug x86, Sparc and MIPS bug fixes.
+
+1.16 Feb-11-98
+	Richard Henderson produces Alpha port.
+
+1.15 Dec-4-97
+	Fixed an n32 ABI bug. New libtool, auto* support.
+
+1.14 May-13-97
+	libtool is now used to generate shared and static libraries.
+	Fixed a minor portability problem reported by Russ McManus
+	<mcmanr@eq.gs.com>.
+
+1.13 Dec-2-96
+	Added --enable-purify-safety to keep Purify from complaining
+	about certain low level code.
+	Sparc fix for calling functions with < 6 args.
+	Linux x86 a.out fix.
+
+1.12 Nov-22-96
+	Added missing ffi_type_void, needed for supporting void return 
+	types. Fixed test case for non MIPS machines. Cygnus Support 
+	is now Cygnus Solutions. 
+
+1.11 Oct-30-96
+	Added notes about GNU make.
+
+1.10 Oct-29-96
+	Added configuration fix for non GNU compilers.
+
+1.09 Oct-29-96
+	Added --enable-debug configure switch. Clean-ups based on LCLint 
+	feedback. ffi_mips.h is always installed. Many configuration 
+	fixes. Fixed ffitest.c for sparc builds.
+
+1.08 Oct-15-96
+	Fixed n32 problem. Many clean-ups.
+
+1.07 Oct-14-96
+	Gordon Irlam rewrites v8.S again. Bug fixes.
+
+1.06 Oct-14-96
+	Gordon Irlam improved the sparc port. 
+
+1.05 Oct-14-96
+	Interface changes based on feedback.
+
+1.04 Oct-11-96
+	Sparc port complete (modulo struct passing bug).
+
+1.03 Oct-10-96
+	Passing struct args, and returning struct values works for
+	all architectures/calling conventions. Expanded tests.
+
+1.02 Oct-9-96
+	Added SGI n32 support. Fixed bugs in both o32 and Linux support.
+	Added "make test".
+
+1.01 Oct-8-96
+	Fixed float passing bug in mips version. Restructured some
+	of the code. Builds cleanly with SGI tools.
+
+1.00 Oct-7-96
+	First release. No public announcement.
+
+
+Authors & Credits
+=================
+
+libffi was originally written by Anthony Green <green@redhat.com>.
+
+The developers of the GNU Compiler Collection project have made
+innumerable valuable contributions.  See the ChangeLog file for
+details.
+
+Some of the ideas behind libffi were inspired by Gianni Mariani's free
+gencall library for Silicon Graphics machines.
+
+The closure mechanism was designed and implemented by Kresten Krab
+Thorup.
+
+Major processor architecture ports were contributed by the following
+developers:
+
+alpha		Richard Henderson
+arm		Raffaele Sena
+cris		Simon Posnjak, Hans-Peter Nilsson
+frv		Anthony Green
+ia64		Hans Boehm
+m32r		Kazuhiro Inaoka
+m68k		Andreas Schwab
+mips		Anthony Green, Casey Marshall
+mips64		David Daney
+pa		Randolph Chung, Dave Anglin, Andreas Tobler
+powerpc		Geoffrey Keating, Andreas Tobler, 
+			 David Edelsohn, John Hornkvist
+powerpc64	Jakub Jelinek
+s390		Gerhard Tonn, Ulrich Weigand
+sh		Kaz Kojima
+sh64		Kaz Kojima
+sparc		Anthony Green, Gordon Irlam
+x86		Anthony Green, Jon Beniston
+x86-64		Bo Thorsen
+
+Jesper Skov and Andrew Haley both did more than their fair share of
+stepping through the code and tracking down bugs.
+
+Thanks also to Tom Tromey for bug fixes, documentation and
+configuration help.
+
+Thanks to Jim Blandy, who provided some useful feedback on the libffi
+interface.
+
+Andreas Tobler has done a tremendous amount of work on the testsuite.
+
+Alex Oliva solved the executable page problem for SElinux.
+
+The list above is almost certainly incomplete and inaccurate.  I'm
+happy to make corrections or additions upon request.
+
+If you have a problem, or have found a bug, please send a note to
+green@redhat.com.