How can I call (not define) a function with a variable number of arguments in C?

Question

Is there any way to make this code shorter?

long call_f(int argc, long *argv) {
  switch (argc) {
    case 0:
      return f();
      break;
    case 1:
             


        

Answer 1

I'll post here the same answer as I posted at the duplicated question, but you should take a look at the discussion there:

What is libffi?

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.

‘libffi’ assumes that you have a pointer to the function you wish to call and that you know the number and types of arguments to pass it, as well as the return type of the function.

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Historic background

libffi, originally developed by Anthony Green (SO user: anthony-green), was inspired by the Gencall library from Silicon Graphics. Gencall was developed by Gianni Mariani, then employed by SGI, for the purpose of allowing calls to functions by address and creating a call frame for the particular calling convention. Anthony Green refined the idea and extended it to other architectures and calling conventions and open sourcing libffi.

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Calling pow with libffi

#include 
#include 
#include 

int main()
{
  ffi_cif     call_interface;
  ffi_type    *ret_type;
  ffi_type    *arg_types[2];

  /* pow signature */
  ret_type = &ffi_type_double;
  arg_types[0] = &ffi_type_double;
  arg_types[1] = &ffi_type_double;

  /* prepare pow function call interface */
  if (ffi_prep_cif(&call_interface, FFI_DEFAULT_ABI, 2, ret_type, arg_types) == FFI_OK)
  {
    void *arg_values[2];
    double x, y, z;

    /* z stores the return */
    z = 0;

    /* arg_values elements point to actual arguments */
    arg_values[0] = &x;
    arg_values[1] = &y;

    x = 2;
    y = 3;

    /* call pow */
    ffi_call(&call_interface, FFI_FN(pow), &z, arg_values);

    /* 2^3=8 */
    printf("%.0f^%.0f=%.0f\n", x, y, z);
  }

  return 0;
}

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I think I can assert libffi is a portable way to do what I asked, contrary to Antti Haapala's assertion that there isn't such a way. If we can't call libffi a portable technology, given how far it's ported/implemented across compilers and architectures, and which interface complies with C standard, we too can't call C, or anything, portable.

Information and history extracted from:

https://github.com/atgreen/libffi/blob/master/doc/libffi.info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libffi