The FFI and FFI::Library modules implement a foreign function interface for
Perl, version 5.005_03 and above. (The modules almost certainly work with
earlier versions of Perl, but I do not have access to such versions to test
them).
The foreign function interface allows Perl code to directly call C functions
exported from shared libraries (DLLs on Windows, .so files on Unix). It also
allows a Perl subroutine to be packaged as a function which can be passed to
an external C routine ("callbacks").
There are two modules in the package:
* FFI is a low-level interface, providing two functions, call() and
callback(). The call() routine expects to be passed a "raw" function
address, but the module provides no way of creating such an address.
That is left to other modules.
* FFI::Library encapsulates the concept of a shared library. It offers
functions to load a library (and to automatically unload it when it is
no longer required), and to extract functions from the library, in a
form suitable for calling from Perl.
See the file INSTALL for installation details.