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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
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<h1>FFI Library</h1>
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<p>
The FFI library allows <b>calling external C functions</b> and
<b>using C data structures</b> from pure Lua code.
</p>
<p>
The FFI library largely obviates the need to write tedious manual
Lua/C bindings in C. No need to learn a separate binding language
— <b>it parses plain C declarations!</b> These can be
cut-n-pasted from C header files or reference manuals. It's up to
the task of binding large libraries without the need for dealing with
fragile binding generators.
</p>
<p>
The FFI library is tightly integrated into LuaJIT (it's not available
as a separate module). The code generated by the JIT-compiler for
accesses to C data structures from Lua code is on par with the
code a C compiler would generate. Calls to C functions can
be inlined in JIT-compiled code, unlike calls to functions bound via
the classic Lua/C API.
</p>
<p>
This page gives a short introduction to the usage of the FFI library.
<em>Please use the FFI sub-topics in the navigation bar to learn more.</em>
</p>
<h2 id="call">Motivating Example: Calling External C Functions</h2>
<p>
It's really easy to call an external C library function:
</p>
<pre class="code mark">
<span class="codemark">①
②
③</span>local ffi = require("ffi")
ffi.cdef[[
<span style="color:#00a000;">int printf(const char *fmt, ...);</span>
]]
ffi.C.printf("Hello %s!", "world")
</pre>
<p>
So, let's pick that apart:
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">①</span> Load the FFI library.
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">②</span> Add a C declaration
for the function. The part inside the double-brackets (in green) is
just standard C syntax.
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">③</span> Call the named
C function — Yes, it's that simple!
</p>
<p style="font-size: 8pt;">
Actually, what goes on behind the scenes is far from simple: <span
style="color:#4040c0;">③</span> makes use of the standard
C library namespace <tt>ffi.C</tt>. Indexing this namespace with
a symbol name (<tt>"printf"</tt>) automatically binds it to the
standard C library. The result is a special kind of object which,
when called, runs the <tt>printf</tt> function. The arguments passed
to this function are automatically converted from Lua objects to the
corresponding C types.
</p>
<p>
Ok, so maybe the use of <tt>printf()</tt> wasn't such a spectacular
example. You could have done that with <tt>io.write()</tt> and
<tt>string.format()</tt>, too. But you get the idea ...
</p>
<p>
So here's something to pop up a message box on Windows:
</p>
<pre class="code">
local ffi = require("ffi")
ffi.cdef[[
<span style="color:#00a000;">int MessageBoxA(void *w, const char *txt, const char *cap, int type);</span>
]]
ffi.C.MessageBoxA(nil, "Hello world!", "Test", 0)
</pre>
<p>
Bing! Again, that was far too easy, no?
</p>
<p style="font-size: 8pt;">
Compare this with the effort required to bind that function using the
classic Lua/C API: create an extra C file, add a C function
that retrieves and checks the argument types passed from Lua and calls
the actual C function, add a list of module functions and their
names, add a <tt>luaopen_*</tt> function and register all module
functions, compile and link it into a shared library (DLL), move it to
the proper path, add Lua code that loads the module aaaand ... finally
call the binding function. Phew!
</p>
<h2 id="cdata">Motivating Example: Using C Data Structures</h2>
<p>
The FFI library allows you to create and access C data
structures. Of course, the main use for this is for interfacing with
C functions. But they can be used stand-alone, too.
</p>
<p>
Lua is built upon high-level data types. They are flexible, extensible
and dynamic. That's why we all love Lua so much. Alas, this can be
inefficient for certain tasks, where you'd really want a low-level
data type. E.g. a large array of a fixed structure needs to be
implemented with a big table holding lots of tiny tables. This imposes
both a substantial memory overhead as well as a performance overhead.
</p>
<p>
Here's a sketch of a library that operates on color images, plus a
simple benchmark. First, the plain Lua version:
</p>
<pre class="code">
local floor = math.floor
local function image_ramp_green(n)
local img = {}
local f = 255/(n-1)
for i=1,n do
img[i] = { red = 0, green = floor((i-1)*f), blue = 0, alpha = 255 }
end
return img
end
local function image_to_gray(img, n)
for i=1,n do
local y = floor(0.3*img[i].red + 0.59*img[i].green + 0.11*img[i].blue)
img[i].red = y; img[i].green = y; img[i].blue = y
end
end
local N = 400*400
local img = image_ramp_green(N)
for i=1,1000 do
image_to_gray(img, N)
end
</pre>
<p>
This creates a table with 160.000 pixels, each of which is a table
holding four number values in the range of 0-255. First, an image with
a green ramp is created (1D for simplicity), then the image is
converted to grayscale 1000 times. Yes, that's silly, but I was in
need of a simple example ...
</p>
<p>
And here's the FFI version. The modified parts have been marked in
bold:
</p>
<pre class="code mark">
<span class="codemark">①
②
③
④
③
⑤</span><b>local ffi = require("ffi")
ffi.cdef[[
</b><span style="color:#00a000;">typedef struct { uint8_t red, green, blue, alpha; } rgba_pixel;</span><b>
]]</b>
local function image_ramp_green(n)
<b>local img = ffi.new("rgba_pixel[?]", n)</b>
local f = 255/(n-1)
for i=<b>0,n-1</b> do
<b>img[i].green = i*f</b>
<b>img[i].alpha = 255</b>
end
return img
end
local function image_to_grey(img, n)
for i=<b>0,n-1</b> do
local y = <b>0.3*img[i].red + 0.59*img[i].green + 0.11*img[i].blue</b>
img[i].red = y; img[i].green = y; img[i].blue = y
end
end
local N = 400*400
local img = image_ramp_green(N)
for i=1,1000 do
image_to_grey(img, N)
end
</pre>
<p>
Ok, so that wasn't too difficult:
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">①</span> First, load the FFI
library and declare the low-level data type. Here we choose a
<tt>struct</tt> which holds four byte fields, one for each component
of a 4x8 bit RGBA pixel.
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">②</span> Creating the data
structure with <tt>ffi.new()</tt> is straightforward — the
<tt>'?'</tt> is a placeholder for the number of elements of a
variable-length array.
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">③</span> C arrays are
zero-based, so the indexes have to run from <tt>0</tt> to
<tt>n-1</tt>. One might want to allocate one more element instead to
simplify converting legacy code.
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">④</span> Since <tt>ffi.new()</tt>
zero-fills the array by default, we only need to set the green and the
alpha fields.
</p>
<p>
<span class="mark">⑤</span> The calls to
<tt>math.floor()</tt> can be omitted here, because floating-point
numbers are already truncated towards zero when converting them to an
integer. This happens implicitly when the number is stored in the
fields of each pixel.
</p>
<p>
Now let's have a look at the impact of the changes: first, memory
consumption for the image is down from 22 Megabytes to
640 Kilobytes (400*400*4 bytes). That's a factor of 35x less! So,
yes, tables do have a noticeable overhead. BTW: The original program
would consume 40 Megabytes in plain Lua (on x64).
</p>
<p>
Next, performance: the pure Lua version runs in 9.57 seconds (52.9
seconds with the Lua interpreter) and the FFI version runs in 0.48
seconds on my machine (YMMV). That's a factor of 20x faster (110x
faster than the Lua interpreter).
</p>
<p style="font-size: 8pt;">
The avid reader may notice that converting the pure Lua version over
to use array indexes for the colors (<tt>[1]</tt> instead of
<tt>.red</tt>, <tt>[2]</tt> instead of <tt>.green</tt> etc.) ought to
be more compact and faster. This is certainly true (by a factor of
~1.7x). Switching to a struct-of-arrays would help, too.
</p>
<p style="font-size: 8pt;">
However, the resulting code would be less idiomatic and rather
error-prone. And it still doesn't get even close to the performance of
the FFI version of the code. Also, high-level data structures cannot
be easily passed to other C functions, especially I/O functions,
without undue conversion penalties.
</p>
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