FFI::CheckLib(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation FFI::CheckLib(3)
NAME
FFI::CheckLib - Check that a library is available for FFI
VERSION
version 0.31
SYNOPSIS
use FFI::CheckLib;
check_lib_or_exit( lib => 'jpeg', symbol => 'jinit_memory_mgr' );
check_lib_or_exit( lib => [ 'iconv', 'jpeg' ] );
# or prompt for path to library and then:
print "where to find jpeg library: ";
my $path = <STDIN>;
check_lib_or_exit( lib => 'jpeg', libpath => $path );
DESCRIPTION
This module checks whether a particular dynamic library is available
for FFI to use. It is modeled heavily on Devel::CheckLib, but will find
dynamic libraries even when development packages are not installed. It
also provides a find_lib function that will return the full path to the
found dynamic library, which can be feed directly into FFI::Platypus or
another FFI system.
Although intended mainly for FFI modules via FFI::Platypus and similar,
this module does not actually use any FFI to do its detection and
probing. This module does not have any non-core runtime dependencies.
The test suite does depend on Test2::Suite.
FUNCTIONS
All of these take the same named parameters and are exported by
default.
find_lib
my(@libs) = find_lib(%args);
This will return a list of dynamic libraries, or empty list if none
were found.
[version 0.05]
If called in scalar context it will return the first library found.
Arguments are key value pairs with these keys:
lib Must be either a string with the name of a single library or a
reference to an array of strings of library names. Depending on
your platform, "CheckLib" will prepend "lib" or append ".dll" or
".so" when searching.
[version 0.11]
As a special case, if "*" is specified then any libs found will
match.
libpath
A string or array of additional paths to search for libraries.
systempath
[version 0.11]
A string or array of system paths to search for instead of letting
FFI::CheckLib determine the system path. You can set this to "[]"
in order to not search any system paths.
symbol
A string or a list of symbol names that must be found.
verify
A code reference used to verify a library really is the one that
you want. It should take two arguments, which is the name of the
library and the full path to the library pathname. It should
return true if it is acceptable, and false otherwise. You can use
this in conjunction with FFI::Platypus to determine if it is going
to meet your needs. Example:
use FFI::CheckLib;
use FFI::Platypus;
my($lib) = find_lib(
lib => 'foo',
verify => sub {
my($name, $libpath) = @_;
my $ffi = FFI::Platypus->new;
$ffi->lib($libpath);
my $f = $ffi->function('foo_version', [] => 'int');
return $f->call() >= 500; # we accept version 500 or better
},
);
recursive
[version 0.11]
Recursively search for libraries in any non-system paths (those
provided via "libpath" above).
try_linker_script
[version 0.24]
Some vendors provide ".so" files that are linker scripts that point
to the real binary shared library. These linker scripts can be
used by gcc or clang, but are not directly usable by FFI::Platypus
and friends. On select platforms, this options will use the linker
command ("ld") to attempt to resolve the real ".so" for non-binary
files. Since there is extra overhead this is off by default.
An example is libyaml on Red Hat based Linux distributions. On
Debian these are handled with symlinks and no trickery is required.
alien
[version 0.25]
If no libraries can be found, try the given aliens instead. The
Alien classes specified must provide the Alien::Base interface for
dynamic libraries, which is to say they should provide a method
called "dynamic_libs" that returns a list of dynamic libraries.
[version 0.28]
In 0.28 and later, if the Alien is not installed then it will be
ignored and this module will search in system or specified
directories only. This module will still throw an exception, if
the Alien doesn't look like a module name or if it does not provide
a "dynamic_libs" method (which is implemented by all Alien::Base
subclasses).
[version 0.30] [breaking change]
Starting with version 0.30, libraries provided by Aliens is
preferred over the system libraries. The original thinking was
that you want to prefer the system libraries because they are more
likely to get patched with regular system updates. Unfortunately,
the reason a module needs to install an Alien is likely because the
system library is not new enough, so we now prefer the Aliens
instead.
assert_lib
assert_lib(%args);
This behaves exactly the same as find_lib, except that instead of
returning empty list of failure it throws an exception.
check_lib_or_exit
check_lib_or_exit(%args);
This behaves exactly the same as assert_lib, except that instead of
dying, it warns (with exactly the same error message) and exists. This
is intended for use in "Makefile.PL" or "Build.PL"
find_lib_or_exit
[version 0.05]
my(@libs) = find_lib_or_exit(%args);
This behaves exactly the same as find_lib, except that if the library
is not found, it will call exit with an appropriate diagnostic.
find_lib_or_die
[version 0.06]
my(@libs) = find_lib_or_die(%args);
This behaves exactly the same as find_lib, except that if the library
is not found, it will die with an appropriate diagnostic.
check_lib
my $bool = check_lib(%args);
This behaves exactly the same as find_lib, except that it returns true
(1) on finding the appropriate libraries or false (0) otherwise.
which
[version 0.17]
my $path = which($name);
Return the path to the first library that matches the given name.
Not exported by default.
where
[version 0.17]
my @paths = where($name);
Return the paths to all the libraries that match the given name.
Not exported by default.
has_symbols
[version 0.17]
my $bool = has_symbols($path, @symbol_names);
Returns true if all of the symbols can be found in the dynamic library
located at the given path. Can be useful in conjunction with "verify"
with "find_lib" above.
Not exported by default.
system_path
[version 0.20]
my $path = FFI::CheckLib::system_path;
Returns the system path as a list reference. On some systems, this is
"PATH" on others it might be "LD_LIBRARY_PATH" on still others it could
be something completely different. So although you may add items to
this list, you should probably do some careful consideration before you
do so.
This function is not exportable, even on request.
ENVIRONMENT
FFI::CheckLib responds to these environment variables:
FFI_CHECKLIB_PACKAGE
On macOS platforms with Homebrew <http://brew.sh> and/or MacPorts
<https://www.macports.org> installed, their corresponding lib paths
will be automatically appended to $system_path. In case of having
both managers installed, Homebrew will appear before.
This behaviour can be overridden using the environment variable
"FFI_CHECKLIB_PACKAGE".
Allowed values are:
- "none": Won't use either Homebrew's path nor MacPorts -
"homebrew": Will append "$(brew --prefix)/lib" to the system paths
- "macports": Will append "port"'s default lib path
A comma separated list is also valid:
export FFI_CHECKLIB_PACKAGE=macports,homebrew
Order matters. So in this example, MacPorts' lib path appears
before Homebrew's path.
FFI_CHECKLIB_PATH
List of directories that will be considered by FFI::CheckLib as
additional "system directories". They will be searched before
other system directories but after "libpath". The variable is
colon separated on Unix and semicolon separated on Windows. If you
use this variable, "FFI_CHECKLIB_PACKAGE" will be ignored.
PATH
On Windows the "PATH" environment variable will be used as a search
path for libraries.
On some operating systems "LD_LIBRARY_PATH", "DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH",
"DYLD_FALLBACK_LIBRARY_PATH" or others may be used as part of the
search for dynamic libraries and may be used (indirectly) by
FFI::CheckLib as well.
FAQ
Why not just use "dlopen"?
Calling "dlopen" on a library name and then "dlclose" immediately
can tell you if you have the exact name of a library available on a
system. It does have a number of drawbacks as well.
No absolute or relative path
It only tells you that the library is somewhere on the system,
not having the absolute or relative path makes it harder to
generate useful diagnostics.
POSIX only
This doesn't work on non-POSIX systems like Microsoft Windows.
If you are using a POSIX emulation layer on Windows that
provides "dlopen", like Cygwin, there are a number of gotchas
there as well. Having a layer written in Perl handles this
means that developers on Unix can develop FFI that will more
likely work on these platforms without special casing them.
inconsistent implementations
Even on POSIX systems you have inconsistent implementations.
OpenBSD for example don't usually include symlinks for ".so"
files meaning you need to know the exact ".so" version.
non-system directories
By default "dlopen" only works for libraries in the system
paths. Most platforms have a way of configuring the search for
different non-system paths, but none of them are portable, and
are usually discouraged anyway. Alien and friends need to do
searches for dynamic libraries in non-system directories for
"share" installs.
My 64-bit Perl is misconfigured and has 32-bit libraries in its search
path. Is that a bug in FFI::CheckLib?
Nope.
The way FFI::CheckLib is implemented it won't work on AIX, HP-UX,
OpenVMS or Plan 9.
I know for a fact that it doesn't work on AIX as currently
implemented because I used to develop on AIX in the early 2000s,
and I am aware of some of the technical challenges. There are
probably other systems that it won't work on. I would love to add
support for these platforms. Realistically these platforms have a
tiny market share, and absent patches from users or the companies
that own these operating systems (patches welcome), or hardware /
CPU time donations, these platforms are unsupportable anyway.
SEE ALSO
FFI::Platypus(3)
Call library functions dynamically without a compiler.
Dist::Zilla::Plugin::FFI::CheckLib(3)
Dist::Zilla plugin for this module.
AUTHOR
Author: Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org>
Contributors:
Bakkiaraj Murugesan (bakkiaraj)
Dan Book (grinnz, DBOOK)
Ilya Pavlov (Ilya, ILUX)
Shawn Laffan (SLAFFAN)
Petr Pisar (ppisar)
Michael R. Davis (MRDVT)
Shawn Laffan (SLAFFAN)
Carlos D. Alvaro (cdalvaro)
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
This software is copyright (c) 2014-2022 by Graham Ollis.
This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.
perl v5.34.1 2022-09-30 FFI::CheckLib(3)
ffi-checklib 0.310.0 - Generated Sun Apr 7 15:45:06 CDT 2024