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Truffle Native Function Interface

Truffle includes a way to call native functions, called the Native Function Interface (NFI). It is implemented as an internal language on top of Truffle that language implementors can access via the standard polyglot eval interface and Truffle interoperability. NFI is intended to be used, for example, to implement a language’s FFI, or to call native runtime routines that are not available in Java.

NFI uses libffi. On a standard JVM it calls it using JNI, and on GraalVM Native Image it uses system Java. In the future it may be optimised by the Graal Compiler in native executables so that native calls are made directly from the compiled code.

Stability

The NFI is an internal language designed for language implementors. It is not considered stable and the interface and behavior may change without warning. It is not intended to be used directly by end-users.

Basic Concepts

The NFI is accessed via the polyglot interface of whatever language you are using. This could be Java, or it could be a Truffle language. This lets you use the NFI from both your Java language implementation code, or from your guest language to reduce the amount of Java that you need to write.

The entry point is the polyglot eval interface. This runs a special DSL, and returns Truffle interoperability objects which can then expose more methods.

Below are some examples using Ruby’s polyglot interface, but any other JVM or a language implementation could be used instead.

Basic Example

Here is a basic working example, before going into the details:

library = Polyglot.eval('nfi', 'load "libSDL2.dylib"')  # load a library
symbol = library['SDL_GetRevisionNumber']               # load a symbol from the library
signature = Polyglot.eval('nfi', '():UINT32')           # prepare a signature
function = signature.bind(symbol)                       # bind the symbol to the signature to create a function
puts function.call # => 12373                           # call the function

Loading libaries

To load a library, a script written in the ‘nfi’ language DSL is evaluated. It returns an object that represents the loaded library.

library = Polyglot.eval('nfi', '...load command...')

The load command can be any of these forms:

  • default
  • load "filename"
  • load (flag | flag | ...) "filename"

The default command returns a pseudo-library that contains all symbols already loaded in the process, equivalent to RTLD_DEFAULT in the Posix interface.

The load "filename" command loads a library from a file. You are responsible for any cross-platform concerns about library naming conventions and load paths.

The load (flag | flag | ...) "filename" command allows you to specify flags to load the library. For the default backend (backends will be described later), and when running on a Posix platform, the flags available are RTLD_GLOBAL, RTLD_LOCAL, RTLD_LAZY, and RTLD_NOW, which have the conventional Posix semantics. The default is RTLD_NOW if neither RTLD_LAZY nor RTLD_NOW were specified.

Loading Symbols from Libraries

To load a symbol from a library, read the symbol as a property from the library object that was previously loaded.

symbol = library['symbol_name']

Producing Native Function Objects from Symbols

To get an executable object that you can call in order to invoke the native function, bind the symbol object that was previously loaded, by creating a signature object and calling the bind method on it. The signature object needs to match the native function’s actual type signature.

signature = Polyglot.eval('nfi', '...signature...')
function = signature.bind(symbol)

The format of the signature is (arg, arg, ...) : return, where arg and return are types.

Types can be one of the simple types:

  • VOID
  • UINT8
  • SINT8
  • UINT16
  • SINT16
  • UINT32
  • SINT32
  • UINT64
  • SINT64
  • FLOAT
  • DOUBLE
  • POINTER
  • STRING
  • OBJECT
  • ENV

Array types are formed by placing another type in square brackets. For example [UINT8]. These are C-style arrays.

Function pointer types are formed by writing a nested signature. For example the signature of qsort would be (POINTER, UINT64, UINT64, (POINTER, POINTER) : SINT32) : VOID.

For a function with a signature with variadic arguments, you specify ... where the variadic arguments start, but then you must specify the actual types that you will be calling the function with. You may therefore need to bind the same symbol multiple times in order to call it with different types or a different number of arguments. For example, to call printf with %d %f you would use the type signature (STRING, ...SINT32, DOUBLE) : SINT32.

Type expressions can be nested arbitrarily deep.

Two additional special types, ENV and OBJECT, are described in the section on the native API, later in this document.

Types can be written in any case.

You are responsible for any mapping of types from a foreign language such as C into NFI types.

Calling Native Function Objects

To call a native function, execute it.

return_value = function.call(...arguments...)

Calling back from Native Code to Managed Functions

Using nested signatures, a function call can get function pointers as arguments. The managed caller needs to pass a Polyglot executable object, that will be converted to a native function pointer. When calling this function pointer from the native side, the execute message is sent to the Polyglot object.

void native_function(int32_t (*fn)(int32_t)) {
  printf("%d\n", fn(15));
}

signature = Polyglot.eval('nfi', '((SINT32):SINT32):VOID')
native_function = signature.bind(library['native_function'])
native_function.call(->(x) { x + 1 })

The arguments and return values of callback functions are converted the same as for regular function calls, with the conversion in the other direction, i.e., arguments are converted from native to managed, and return values are converted from managed to native.

Callback function pointers can themselves have function pointer arguments. That works as you would expect: the function accepts a native function pointer as argument, and it is converted to a Truffle executable object. Sending the execute message to that object calls the native function pointer, same as calling a regular NFI function.

Function pointer types are also supported as return types.

Combined Loading and Binding

You can optionally combine loading a library with loading symbols and binding them. This is achieved with an extended load command, which then returns an object with the already bound functions as methods.

These two examples are equivalent:

library = Polyglot.eval('nfi', 'load libSDL2.dylib')
symbol = library['SDL_GetRevisionNumber']
signature = Polyglot.eval('nfi', '():UINT32')
function = signature.bind(symbol)
puts function.call # => 12373

library = Polyglot.eval('nfi', 'load libSDL2.dylib { SDL_GetRevisionNumber():UINT32; }')
puts library.SDL_GetRevisionNumber # => 12373

The definitions in the curly braces {} can contain multiple function bindings, so that many functions can be loaded from a library at once.

Backends

The load command can be prefixed by with in order to select a specific NFI backend. Multiple NFI backends are available. The default is called native, and will be used if there is no with prefix, or the selected backend is not available.

Depending on the configuration of components you are running, available backends may include:

  • native
  • llvm, which uses the GraalVM LLVM runtime to run the native code
  • panama

Panama backend

The Panama backend uses the Foreign Function and Memory APIs introduced by project Panama. This backend only supports a subset of all the types. Specifically, it does not support STRING, OBJECT, ENV, FP80 or array types. Although less feature-complete, the backend is typically more performant. Currently, it is available starting from JDK 21 with the --enable-preview tag.

Truffle NFI on Native Image

To build a native image that contains the Truffle NFI, it is sufficient to use the --language:nfi argument, or specify Requires = language:nfi in native-image.properties. It is possible to select what implementation to use for the native backend using --language:nfi=<backend>.

Note that the --language:nfi=<backend> argument must come before any other arguments that might pull in the NFI as dependency via Requires = language:nfi. The first instance of language:nfi wins and determines what backend will be built into the native image.

Available arguments for --language:nfi=<backend> are:

  • libffi (the default)
  • none

Selecting the none native backend will effectively disable access to native functions using the Truffle NFI. This will break users of the NFI that rely on native access (e.g. the GraalVM LLVM Runtime, unless used with --llvm.managed on EE).

Native API

The NFI can be used with unmodified, already compiled native code, but it can also be used with a Truffle-specific API being used by the native code.

The special type ENV adds an additional parameter TruffleEnv *env to the signature. An additional simple type OBJECT translates to an opaque TruffleObject type.

The trufflenfi.h header file provides declarations for working with these types, that can then be used by the native code called through the NFI. See trufflenfi.h for more documentation on this API.

Type Marshalling

This section describes in detail how argument values and return values are converted for all types in the function signature.

The following table shows the possible types in NFI signatures with their corresponding C language types on the native side, and what polyglot values these arguments map to on the managed side:

NFI type C language type Polyglot value
VOID void Polyglot object with isNull == true (only valid as return type).
SINT8/16/32/64 int8/16/32/64_t Polyglot isNumber that fitsIn... the corresponding integer type.
UINT8/16/32/64 uint8/16/32/64_t Polyglot isNumber that fitsIn... the corresponding integer type.
FLOAT float Polyglot isNumber that fitsInFloat.
DOUBLE double Polyglot isNumber that fitsInDouble.
POINTER void * Polyglot object with isPointer == true or isNull == true.
STRING char * (zero-terminated UTF-8 string) Polyglot isString.
OBJECT TruffleObject Arbitrary object.
[type] type * (array of primitive) Java host primitive array.
(args):ret ret (*)(args) (function pointer type) Polyglot function with isExecutable == true.
ENV TruffleEnv * nothing (injected argument)

The following sections describe the type conversions in detail.

The type conversion behavior with function pointers can be slightly confusing, because the direction of the arguments is reversed. When in doubt, always try to figure out in which direction arguments or return values flow, from managed to native or from native to managed.

VOID

This type is only allowed as return type, and is used to denote functions that do not return a value.

Since in the Polyglot API, all executable objects have to return a value, a Polyglot object with isNull == true will be returned from native functions that have a VOID return type.

The return value of managed callback functions with return type VOID will be ignored.

Primitive Numbers

The primitive number types are converted as you might expect. The argument needs to be a Polyglot number, and its value needs to fit in the value range of the specified numeric type.

One thing to note is the handling of the unsigned integer types. Even though the Polyglot API does not specify separate messages for values fitting in unsigned types, the conversion is still using the unsigned value ranges. For example, the value 0xFF passed from native to managed through a return value of type SINT8 will result in a Polyglot number -1, which fitsInByte. But the same value returned as UINT8 results in a Polyglot number 255, which does not fitsInByte.

When passing numbers from managed code to native code, the signedness of the number is ignored, only the bits of the number are relevant. So for example, passing -1 to an argument of type UINT8 is allowed, and the result on the native side is 255, since it has the same bits as -1. The other way round, passing 255 to an argument of type SINT8 is also allowed, and the result on the native side is -1.

Since in the current Polyglot API it is not possible to represent numbers outside of the signed 64-bit range, the UINT64 type is currently handled with signed semantics. This is a known bug in the API, and will change in a future release.

POINTER

This type is a generic pointer argument. On the native side, it does not matter what exact pointer type the argument is.

A polyglot object passed to POINTER arguments will be converted to a native pointer if possible (using the isPointer, asPointer and toNative messages as necessary). An object with isNull == true will be passed as a native NULL.

POINTER return values will produce a polyglot object with isPointer == true. The native NULL pointer will additionally have isNull == true.

STRING

This is a pointer type with special conversion semantics for strings.

Polyglot strings passed from managed to native using the STRING type will be converted to a zero-terminated UTF-8 encoded string. For STRING arguments, the pointer is owned by the caller, and is guaranteed to stay alive for the duration of the call only. The STRING values returned from managed function pointers to a native caller are also owned by the caller. They have to be freed with free after use.

Polyglot pointer values or null values can also be passed to STRING arguments. The semantics is the same as for POINTER arguments. The user is responsible for ensuring that the pointer is a valid UTF-8 string.

The STRING values passed from native functions to managed code behave like POINTER return values, but in addition they have isString == true. The user is responsible for the ownership of the pointer and it might be necessary to free the return value, depending on the semantics of the called native function. After freeing the returned pointer, the returned polyglot string is invalid and reading it results in undefined behavior. In that sense, the returned polyglot string is not a safe object, similar to a raw pointer. It is recommented that the user of the NFI copies the returned string before passing it along to untrusted managed code.

OBJECT

This argument corresponds to the C type TruffleObject. This type is defined in trufflenfi.h, and is an opaque pointer type. A value of type TruffleObject represents a reference to an arbitrary managed object.

Native code can do nothing with values of type TruffleObject except pass them back to managed code, either through return values or passing them to callback function pointers.

The lifetime of TruffleObject references needs to be managed manually. See the documentation in trufflenfi.h for API functions to manage the lifetime of TruffleObject references.

A TruffleObject passed as an argument is owned by the caller, and guaranteed to stay alive for the duration of the call. A TruffleObject reference returned from a callback function pointer is owned by the caller, and needs to be freed after use. Returning a TruffleObject from a native function does not transfer ownership (but there is an API function in trufflenfi.h to do that).

[...] (Native Primitive Arrays)

This type is only allowed as an argument from managed code to a native function, and only arrays of primitive numeric types are supported.

On the managed side, only Java host objects containing a Java primitive array are supported. On the native side, the type is a pointer to the contents of the array. It is the user’s responsibility to pass along the array length as a separate argument.

The pointer is valid for the duration of the native call only.

Modifications to the contents are propagated back to the Java array after returning from the call. The effects of concurrent access to the Java array during the native call are unspecified.

(...):... (Function Pointer)

On the native side, a nested signature type corresponds to a function pointer with the given signature, calling back to managed code.

Polyglot executable objects passed from managed to native using a function pointer type are converted to a function pointer that can be called by the native code. For function pointer arguments, the function pointer is owned by the caller, and is guaranteed to stay alive for the duration of the call only. Function pointer return values are owned by the caller, and have to be freed manually. See polyglot.h for API functions to manage the lifetime of function pointer values.

Polyglot pointer values or null values can also be passed to function pointer arguments. The semantics is the same as for POINTER arguments. The user is responsible for ensuring that the pointer is a valid function pointer.

Function pointer return types are the same as regular POINTER return types, but in addition they are already bound to the given signature type. They support the execute message, and behave the same as regular NFI functions.

ENV

This type is a special argument of type TruffleEnv *. It is only valid as argument type, not as a return type. It is an injected argument on the native side, there is no corresponding argument on the managed side.

When used as argument type of a native function, the native function will get an environment pointer on this position. That environment pointer can be used to call API functions (see trufflenfi.h). The argument is injected, for example, if the signature is (SINT32, ENV, SINT32):VOID. This function object is expected to be called with two integer arguments, and the corresponding native function will be called with three arguments: first the first real argument, then the injected ENV argument, and then the second real argument.

When the ENV type is used as an argument type for a function pointer parameter, that function pointer must be called with a valid NFI environment as an argument. If the caller already has an environment, threading it through to callback function pointers is more efficient than calling them without an ENV argument.

Calling Convention

Native functions must use the system’s standard ABI. There is currently no support for alternative ABIs.