Foreign function interface

Foreign function interface, or FFI, is a common name for a facility in a programming language (especially a high-level one that does not usually work in terms of pointers, raw structure layout, etc.) to invoke functions and access data structures defined using another one (especially C).

The term is commonly used in Common Lisp and Haskell.

Relevant tasks

Functions

• Call foreign language function
  • Call function in shared library (a special case)
• Use another language to call a function

Data structures/memory access

• Address Operations
• Data Representation
  • Controlling Fields in a Structure
  • Getting the Size
  • Specifying Minimum Size
• Host Introspection

See also

• “Foreign function interface” at Wikipedia