How To Install libffi.x86_64 on Amazon Linux 2

In this tutorial we learn how to install libffi.x86_64 in Amazon Linux 2. libffi.x86_64 is A portable foreign function interface library

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install libffi.x86_64 on Amazon Linux 2.

What is `libffi.x86_64`

Compilers for high level languages generate code that follow certain conventions. These conventions are necessary, in part, for separate compilation to work. One such convention is the “calling convention”. The calling convention is a set of assumptions made by the compiler about where function arguments will be found on entry to a function. A calling convention also specifies where the return value for a function is found. Some programs may not know at the time of compilation what arguments are to be passed to a function. For instance, an interpreter may be told at run-time about the number and types of arguments used to call a given function. Libffi' can be used in such programs to provide a bridge from the interpreter program to compiled code. The libffi’ library provides a portable, high level programming interface to various calling conventions. This allows a programmer to call any function specified by a call interface description at run time. FFI stands for Foreign Function Interface. A foreign function interface is the popular name for the interface that allows code written in one language to call code written in another language. The libffi' library really only provides the lowest, machine dependent layer of a fully featured foreign function interface. A layer must exist above libffi’ that handles type conversions for values passed between the two languages.

We can use yum to install libffi.x86_64 on Amazon Linux 2. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install libffi.x86_64.

Install libffi.x86_64 on Amazon Linux 2 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

After updating yum database, We can install libffi.x86_64 using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install libffi.x86_64

How To Uninstall libffi.x86_64 on Amazon Linux 2

To uninstall only the libffi.x86_64 package we can use the following command:

sudo yum remove libffi.x86_64

libffi.x86_64 Package Contents on Amazon Linux 2

/usr/lib64/libffi.so.6
/usr/lib64/libffi.so.6.0.1
/usr/share/doc/libffi-3.0.13
/usr/share/doc/libffi-3.0.13/LICENSE
/usr/share/doc/libffi-3.0.13/README

References

libffi.x86_64 website

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install libffi.x86_64 on Amazon Linux 2 using yum.