Information about the package, libffi, which is shipped with common Linux distributions. The libffi package is designed for, A portable foreign function interface library.
Package Name:
libffi
Summary:
A portable foreign function interface library
Description:
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.
Architecture:
i686
Version:
3.0.5
Release:
3.2.el6
Size:
22 k
Repository:
base
From Repository:
Licence:
BSD
Control the libffi package with the following handy commands outlined below.
yum install libffi
This command will install libffi on the server.
yum remove libffi
This command will un-install libffi on the server. When you run this command, you will be asked if you are sure that you want to remove libffi, so you have to manually confirm that you want to do this.
yum -y remove libffi
This command will un-install libffi on the server. When you run this command with th e -y flag, you will not be prompted to check that you are sure you want to remove the package - so be sure you absolutely want to remove libffi when using the -y flag.
yum update libffi
This command will update libffi to the latest version. When you run this command, you will be asked if you are sure that you want to remove libffi, so you have to manually confirm that you want to do this.
yum -y update libffi
This command will update libffi to the latest version. When you run this command with the -y flag, you will not be prompted to check that you are sure you want to remove the package - so be sure you absolutely want to remove libffi when using the -y flag.
yum info libffi
This command will show you core information about the libffi package.
yum deplist libffi
This command will show you the dependencies for libffi. Thankfully, when using Yum, if dependencies are required, these are also installed at the same time so you don't have to worry too much about that.
yum check-update libffi
This command will check if there is an update waiting on libffi. When you run this command this will return nothing if there is nothing to update, or, will return the package name if the package is due to be updated.