Changelog

This file lists bigger/noteworthy changes, only...

Version 1.4 (2022/12/06)

dyncall:

• new, portable aggregate-by-value argument interface
• aggregate-by-value (struct, union) support for x64 (win and sysv; thanks Raphael Luba!)
• new aggregate description interface DCaggr replacing stale DCstruct (latter had shortcomings, was mostly unused as it lacked stable implementations, didn't handle unions, ...)
• new calling convention modes for thiscalls (platform agnostic DC_CALL_C_DEFAULT_THIS, as well as DC_CALL_C_X64_{WIN64,SYSV}_THIS (needed to handle C++ ABI rules for returning aggregates by value)
• new signature character for platform agnostic thiscalls ('*' / DC_SIGCHAR_CC_THISCALL)
• dcCallF(), dcVCallF(), dcArgF() and dcVArgF() don't implicitly call dcReset() anymore, which was unflexible (breaking change)
• added macros to feature test implementation for aggregate-by-value and syscall support
• windows/x64/masm directives added to specify how stack unwinds (help for debuggers, exception handling, etc.; thanks Raphael Luba!)
• fixed detection of native thiscall callconv for builds not using MSVC but using (or adhering to) the MSVC runtime (e.g. ReactOS' MinGW based RosBE)
• BSD syscall segfault fix

dyncallback:

• new, portable aggregate-by-value callback argument interface
• aggregate-by-value (struct, union) support for x64 (win and sysv; thanks Raphael Luba!)
• x64/windows masm directives for frame unwinding information (as dbg help; thanks Raphael Luba!)
• sparc64 callback crash fix

dynload:

• build fix for ReactOS with RosBE/cmake/mingw-make environment

general:

• more robust detection of platform endianness (on some platforms inclusion of endian.h led to wrong assumptions)

tests:

• call_suite: simplified and extended to test also unsigned types, and _Bool
• callback_suite: refactored to be much more like call_suite test
• call_suite_aggrs: new test suite for calls with aggregate arguments and return types (structs, unions and arrays as aggregate members)
• callback_suite_aggrs: new test suite, like call_suite_aggrs but for callbacks
• plain: added some aggregate-as-vararg-by-value tests
• plain_c++: added non-trivial C++ aggregate tests
• callback_plain_c++: new test, focusing on methods and non-trivial C++ aggregates
• simplifications and major refactoring to share more code (especially signature and case generator) across test suites
• dynload_plain: simplified build and robustness fixes on some platforms

buildsys:

• ./configure output for sun make builds: set correct C++ compiler flag var
• ./configure for SunOS now uses isainfo(1) to deduce native instruction set
• added explicit arm64 target, and clang tool options to Windows' configure.bat
• configure.{bat,rc} now writing Makefile.config, for consistency/compatibility (e.g. configure.bat can now be used to set up env flags for a non-nmake toolchain)
• simplified/decluttered Windows and Plan9 configure scripts (removal of unused/stale options, ...)

doc:

• callconv section additions about aggregate-by-value passing for all platforms
• new Linux-Std-Base-specific PPC32/SysV section, as aggregate retval handling differs from default SysV for such systems
• man page changes/additions to document new aggregate interfaces
• added many more usage examples to man pages
• replaced API description in manual with references to the manpages, to avoid duplication and keeping things in sync
• general clarifications and cleanup, adding missing definitions to man pages, ...

Version 1.3 (2021/12/17)

• introduced version macro (see dyncall/dyncall_version.h)

dyncall:

• fixed broken return values w/ arm32/thumb mode (only affected some platforms)
• build fix when using clang's integrated assembler on arm32 hard-float platforms

dyncallback:

• build fix when using clang's integrated assembler on arm32 hard-float platforms

dynload:

• Haiku/x86 build fix
• dynload fix for PE files that do not contain a symbol export directory (thanks Ashok!)

buildsys:

• windows/nmake based builds: output library name changes to follow conventions of the native platform and be in line with cmake based builds

tests:

• fixed status codes of some tests to actually depend on results (for consistency and automation)

Version 1.2 (2021/01/23)

dyncall:

• windows arm64 support (thanks Bernhard!)
• extended signature with more chars for calling convention switching (only for modes that coexist on a platform with other conventions)
• made "formatted" call interface use calling convention signature chars
• added helper function dcGetModeFromCCSigChar() mapping callconv sig chars to respective mode
• removed some unnecessary headers (only contained internal used forward declarations)
• build fix when using clang's integrated assembler on non-Darwin PPC32 platforms

dyncallback:

• windows arm64 support (thanks Bernhard!)
• build fix when using clang's integrated assembler on non-Darwin PPC32 platforms

dynload:

• fix to build with musl libc
• support for loading macos >= 11.0.1 (Big Sur) dylibs provided by system's "built-in dynamic linker cache of all system-provided libraries" (those dylibs are no longer present on the fs)
• fix to work on recent Haiku versions (r1 beta versions)

doc:

• manual now specifying calling convention signature chars
• dynload(3) note about macos >= 11.0.1 cached dylib support (see above)
• marked Haiku/x64 as supported and tested

bindings:

• pydc: Python 3 support, Python 2 unicode support, added get_path function, changing 'Z' conversions to only immutable types and 'p' to mutable types (and handles), support passing None for 'Z' and 'p', bytearray support, support to specify calling convention
• shdc: can reference own executable now and support for more calling conventions
• shdc: syscall support

tests:

• extended callf testcode to test callconv mode switch signature chars (including syscalls)
• robustness fixes (thanks Bernhard!)
• dynload_plain test fix on macos >= 11.0.1 (Big Sur)
• made inode testing of dynload_plain optional, depending on platform support or if macos dylib not on fs but provided through system's cache

buildsys:

• cmake support of armasm64 on windows (thanks Bernhard!)

Version 1.1 (2020/01/11)

dyncall:

• support for soft-float MIPS o32 & n64 (big- and little-endian, each)
• x64 System V syscall support

dyncallback:

• support for soft-float MIPS o32 & n64 (big- and little-endian, each)

dynload:

• added UTF-8 support for pathnames on windows
• reliability/stability fix for dlGetLibraryPath() on glibc based platforms (avoiding internal use of glibc's bad impl of dlinfo() which doesn't do any error checking at all)
• Darwin/macos fix for dlGetLibraryPath() to correctly fail on bogus handles (did return paths to random libraries under some circumstances, instead of returning an error)
• support for dlGetLibraryPath() on glibc platforms with glibc vesions <= 2.3.3
• dlGetLibraryPath() now accepts NULL as argument to return path to executable
• dlLoadLibrary() on windows: no more auto-suffixing of the .dll file ext anymore, to be more in line with other platforms (not affecting OS specific library search behaviour)

doc:

• more detail in support matrix for bi-endian platforms
• improvements/corrections to calling convention appendix
• PPC64 calling convention description
• MIPS64/N32 calling convention description
• man page additions for clarity

tests:

• dynload_plain test extended to test UTF-8 library paths
• better output for plain test
• better output and *nix fix for plain_c++ test

buildsys:

• default ./configure: FreeBSD/mips*hf needed -mhard-float compiler flag set explicitly
• better MacOS Mojave support in ./configure (Mojave dropped i386 builds)

Version 1.0 (2018/04/23)

dyncall:

• PPC64 single-precision float fixes for more than 13 float args (thanks Masanori Mitsugi!)
• fixed potential buffer overrun on ARM64
• error code handling (dcGetError) changes, flag is now cleared (work still underway)
• MIPS n64 ellipsis call fixes
• ARM32 armhf ellipsis call fixes
• fixed ARM32-THUMB stack alignment issues (found on Cortex-m0, thanks Darren Whobrey!)
• better C++ compiler support (for pointer conversions)

dyncallback:

• PPC64 single-precision float fixes for more than 13 float args (thanks Masanori Mitsugi!)
• MIPS o32 (big- and little-endian), EABI (32 bit, little-endian) and n64 (big-endian) support
• SPARC32 (v7/v8) support
• SPARC64 (v9) support
• PPC32 fixes for (old) Darwin/OS X systems
• POSIX compliance: fallback for wx alloc on systems that don't have mmap()'s MAP_ANON
• allocated space used for thunk now always W^X (req. for e.g. OpenBSD >= 6.0)

dynload:

• major reliability/stability fixes for Mach-O dlSyms* functions to (thanks Stéphane Mons for help):
  • better handle loading dylibs by symlink, relative path, random casing, etc.
  • fixes to symbol name lookups that used wrong offsets before
  • 64-bit platform fixes (was broken on x64 and never supported on others)
• allowing Mach-O dlSyms* lib to be used standalone (consistent with ELF and PE impls now)
• simplifications of implemention on Darwin, sharing parts with *nix implementation
• potentially breaking change on macos/Darwin platforms: all functions now consistently accept or return symbol names as they would appear in C code, instead of the raw ones in object files
• added new function dlGetLibraryPath, allowing lookups of path to library via handle

general:

• assembly code now built by explicitily asking for non-execstack, for safer/easier integration into other projects/builds, where needed; needed b/c of questionable default behaviours of some toolchains (thanks Thorsten Behrens for report and analysis)

doc:

• working html doc generation from TEX sources
• SPARC32 (v7/v8) calling convention description
• SPARC64 (v9) calling convention description

bindings:

• better documentation, removed relative path dependencies, general cleanup
• python: updated to latest signature format (was still on 0.1)
• java: rewritten (old version was never complete, anyways)

tests:

• added new dynload_plain test covering basic use of all dynload functions

buildsys:

• cmake: made to work on systems without C++ compiler (thanks Franklin Mathieu)

Version 0.9 (2015/12/31)

dyncall:

• ARM64 support (AAPCS64 on Linux & Apple's derived version on iOS)
• armhf calling convention support for ARM32
• PPC64 support, including syscalls (thanks Masanori Mitsugi!)
• introduced dcArgF and dcVArgF for flexible/convenient argument binding (works like dcCallF/dcVCallF but without the function call)
• using -fPIC by default for FreeBSD
• PPC32 linux syscall support
• fixed return value errors for ARM32 on some platforms (e.g. freebsd/arm32, nintendo ds); arm & thumb mode

dyncallback:

• ARM64 support (AAPCS64 on Linux, Apple's derived version on iOS)
• armhf calling convention support for ARM32
• PPC64 support (thanks Masanori Mitsugi!)
• PPC32 System V support (Linux)
• fix for PPC32 Darwin/OS X
• more intuitive specification of callback return type

doc:

• added ARM64 support info and calling convention documentation
• added ARM32 armhf section
• added PPC64 support info
• cleanup, brought all up to date, etc.

tests:

• callf test covers new argf interface
• several fixes to some test suites

buildsys:

• more flexible testsuite build and 'pack' target for convenience
• fixes/additions for OS X universal builds
• added iOS universal build support for armv7/arm64
• helper script for generic .elf -> EBOOT.PBP creation for PSP
• Sun make fixes for C++ code in test suite

bindings:

• erldc: Erlang binding (thanks Erik!)

infrastructure:

• moved to hg
• moved bindings to own repository

Version 0.8 (2014/03/24)

buildsys:

• big simplification make-based build system, no more distinct GNU and BSD makefiles anymore
• new, much simpler ./configure for new make-based build-system
• support for in-source and out-of-source builds for make-based build systems
• made configure.bat guess x64 as target arch for x64 windows hosts
• based more sources on portasm generation

dyncall:

• fix for ARMv7 Thumb-2 code (tested on iPhone 4 CDMA / iOS 6.0.1)
• bugfixes for -O2 builds for SPARC-v9 and SPARC-v7
• new optimized call kernel for SPARC-v9 without conditionals
• bigger refactoring and optimization of MIPS o32
• x64 optimizations

dyncallback:

• added callback support for plan9
• big cleanup, removal of duplicate files after introduction of portasm
• include path fixes for public facing APIs (removed relative paths)

doc:

• cleanup of manual and corrections
• added info about newly supported and/or tested platforms (e.g. FreeBSD on ARM)
• restructured folder layout for documentation
• added API doc for dyncallback and dynload
• added manpages for dyncallback and dynload

tests:

• added arm/thumb interwork test suite

bindings:

• godc: added bindings for Go
• rbdc: fixed and extended ruby bindings
• shdc: renamed shell binding to shdc and added feature to list shared-objects' symbols

Version 0.7 (2012/01/02)

architecture:

• added subproject: portasm - portable (GNU AS,+Apple and MASM) assembly framework
• added subproject: autovar - predefined macro framework (was dyncall_macros.h)
• added support for Solaris and SunPro compiler for i386, x86_64, sparc and sparc64
• improved auto-detection via preprocessor defines

dyncall:

• uses portasm (GNU,Apple,Microsoft) common sources for x86,x64,ppc32,arm32_arm
• added support for sparc (32-bit) (tested on linux/debian,openbsd,solaris)
• added support for sparc (64-bit) (tested on linux/debian,openbsd,solaris)
• bug fixes for x64/win64 calling convention
• added support for mingw32-w64 on x64
• improved cdecl x86 calling convention: stack always 16 byte aligned
• updated API and initial support for structs (for x86/AMD64)
• initial support for syscalls on x86, added x86 int80h linux/bsd
• added Minix port (stable)
• optimized vector buffer for small type pushing
• minor fix for amd64/sysv: alignment to 32-byte
• bug fix for ppc32/sysv: ellipsis calls work now
• updated API, introduced DC_CALL_C_ELLIPSIS_VARARGS
• changed interface: dcMode does not reset internally anymore

dyncallback:

• uses portasm for x86,x64
• added Solaris/x86/sunpro port (stable)
• added Minix port (unstable)
• callback support for Darwin/ppc32
• updates source, uses relative includes

dynload:

• fixes for missing includes (dyncall_alloc.h)
• fixes for self-resolving symbols on windows
• removed Dbghelf.lib dependency
• bug fixes for cygwin/x86
• fixes for beos/haiku
• no dependencies to libdyncall sources.

buildsys additions:

• added zero-config (BSD,GNU,SUN) make files (Makefile.embedded)
• added in/out-of-source configure2 w/ (BSD,GNU) make files (Makefile.generic)
• added bootstrap lua script (download/build)
• Nmakefile: more tests included (resolve_self)
• improved cross-compilation for iOS (upgrade to 4.3 sdk)
• darwin 8.0 support
• added 'install' support for Makefile.embedded

buildsys/gmake updates:

• added support for msvc/x64 tool-chain
• default settings for build-dir changed to '.'
• cleanup: removed top-level Make{Prolog,Epilog,Rules} files and updated all sub-projects and tests
• added support for DESTDIR staging installation
• added support for manual page installation

buildsys/cmake updates:

• updated find module scripts (see cmake/Modules)
• added support for using dyncall as sub-project (via *Config.cmake files) see details in README.CMake
• fixes for msvc and ml
• fixes for CPack
• fixes for universal builds on Mac OS X
• supports SunPro with *.S files.
• added experimental 'dynMake' portable make-based build-system (not stable, yet)

doc:

• added dyncallback documentation
• updated dyncall documentation
• minor updates

tests:

• added flexible test suite for calls (call_suite) based on Lua and C
• added syscall test
• updates to resolve-self test (adding additional link flags to export symbols)
• renamed *.cpp -> *.cc files (OpenBSD/Sun make has no implicit rules for cpp)

Version 0.6 (2010/09/25)

buildsys:

• new build systems: CMake and Plan9's mk
• buildsys/gmake tool chain update: pcc and iphone sdk
• x64 bugfix: added "-fPIC" even for static libs

dynload:

• enum symbols update: Mach-O and Win64 (thanks Olivier)
• numerous convenience changes to dynload interface (thanks Olivier)
• added support for resolving application images itself

dyncall:

• new platform support: arm/iphone (armv6), x86/Plan9
• new MIPS calling conventions: o32, n64 (both endian models)
• cleanup: unexported functions in MASM files, b/c export not needed (thanks Olivier)
• interface update: added error reporting facility 'dcGetError'
• bugfix for ppc32/sysv: ellipsis calls were broken
• interface update: added new abstract mode for ellipsis calls (DC_CALL_C_ELLIPSIS)

docs:

• comprehensive update

tests:

• plain: split "plain" test up in C and C++ part
• callbacksuite: added multiple configuration support for callback_suite

Version 0.5 (2010/02/01)

• renamed arm9 stuff to arm32
• added non-EABI ABI for arm32 (before, EABI was the default implementation)
• added dyncallback support for x64/windows (thanks Olivier), x64/darwin, arm32/arm, arm32/thumb
• synced documentation again with current state of the source (lots of small changes)
• updated ruby binding to current state of signature string (still some features missing, though)
• added a couple of new options to configure scripts (e.g. prefix-bd, new targets, etc.)
• darwin universal binary support
• added new tests callback_plain and calback_suite
• added Haiku/BeOS support

Version 0.4 (2009/07/06)

• added 'doc' makefile target for coherency and ease of use
• fixed nmake buildfiles and configure.bat (were out of date and wrong)
• test suite clean up (GNUmake, BSDmake):
  • target "config" modified, phony without dependencies to other builds
• bugfix: GNU fastcall calling convention for float and double arguments was wrong (no skip of register)
• update: x86win32* suite tests are built on cygwin now, added total result output
• signature char (breaking) changes:
  • C Strings: 'S' -> 'Z'
  • long: 'l' -> 'j'
  • long long: 'L' -> 'l'
  • added unsigned integer type signature characters: upper case encoding
• added: callbacks component (support only for some platforms ATM)
• added: test cases for alloc_wx, thunk
• updated Documentation

Version 0.3 (2009/01/17)

• added Linux PPC32 support
• added ARM THUMB mode support
• cosmetic changes, documentation updated
• bugfix: on cygwin exported C symbols in GNU as are prefixed with '_' now.
• removed scons build support

Version 0.2 (2008/05/18)

• added scons build support
• configure variables all prefix CONFIG_* now
• configure variable INSTALL_DIR changed to INSTALL_PREFIX
• configure (shell version) option "--prefix" changed to "--prefix=<path>"

Version 0.1 (2008/01/23)

• initial release