AutoFFI is a way to call compiled code from higher-level languages, such as scripting languages. This repository contains an analyser which generates a file containing metadata. This metadata in turn is neccessary for automatically connecting to a C library.

Do you like compilers? Do you know LLVM? Would you like to be able to call C code directly without the hassle of binding? Then help us out! Check out the issues to get an idea of what needs to be done and file a pull request whenever you like.

We provide binaries that are built by our build system whenever a new release arrives. You can download them to the releases section. Simply symlink the binaries somewhere into your $PATH.

Warning: the additional files must be placed near the executable so that the analyser might be able to find them. Therefore, we recommend symlinking.

The easiest way to install the AutoFFI compiler is through Homebrew.

Note: this method is not supported yet

$ brew install autoffi/autoffi/autoffi

$ affc myprog.c --include myprog.c > api.json

• quiet: do not emit Clang diagnostics while compiling
• include: include exported symbols that reside within this file. Usually these are the header files of the project.
• include-hidden: include hidden symbols in the generated output. If you plan to connect to the ABI, this is almost never what you want.
• include-protected: include symbols that have been marked as protected.

Generates a special AST from a set of sources. For more information, read the example.

Options:

• include: one or more paths of which the resulting AST will be generated
• exclude: one or more path that will not be included in the generated AST

AutoFFI allows you to call low-level procedures as is, without any fancy things such as garbage collection. In order to achieve that you will still have to write your own code.

• Anthony Green for his marvellous libffi