Affix
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# Changelog
All notable changes to Affix.pm will be documented in this file.
The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/),
and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
## [v1.2.5] - 2026-08-17
### Fixed
- `SAVEVPTR`/`SAVEDESTRUCTOR_X` 'fix' broke thread safety. When a second thread or fiber entered the same Affix-generated XSUB, its `SAVEVPTR` captured the first fiber's temp arena as "old", so on scope exit the second fiber restored a dangling point...
## [v1.2.4] - 2026-08-15
Plugging leaks...
### Fixed
- Use `SAVEVPTR` and `SAVEDESTRUCTOR_X` to swap out arenas to fix leaky allocator in situations where tons of structs are passed in a list and need to be marshalled in only one direction
- Casting or binding an aggregate (`Affix::cast`, member pins) no longer leaks: member pins borrowed the freshly created parent hash/array as their lifeline, forming a strong reference cycle that Perl's refcounting cannot collect, so the whole pin tr...
- Passing a union to a wrapped call no longer segfaults: the argument sync read back *every* union member, and reading an inactive pointer/string member dereferenced the active member's float bytes as a C string pointer. Deep writes now skip members ...
- The library probe in `Affix::Platform::Unix` (`_findLib_gcc`) no longer prints linker errors (`undefined reference to WinMain`/`main`) while searching: it probes with `-shared`, which needs no entry point.
- Bitfields inside `Struct[...]` are no longer read or written out of bounds: `member->offset` now points at the storage unit base (with `bit_offset` relative to the unit) instead of the bitfield's own byte, so the unit-sized load/store in `push_stru...
- Reading and writing packed struct members (and pinned primitives) no longer uses unaligned native loads/stores: the dispatch vtables, bitfield vtables, pull handlers, and push handlers now round-trip through `memcpy`, which is safe on strict-alignm...
- Passing a wide string (`WString()`, i.e. `*wchar_t`) to a wrapped function now works on all platforms instead of croaking `Don't know how to handle this type of scalar as a pointer argument yet` on non-Windows systems, where the wide-string push op...
- Returning a `WString` no longer crashes: the wide-string pull handler called `SvGROW` on an uninitialized target SV, faulting before any buffer was allocated.
- [infix] Passing a 5-7 byte `Struct[...]` by value to a wrapped function no longer drops the trailing members on ARM64. The forward trampoline emitted a 32-bit register load unless the struct was exactly 8 bytes, so a `Struct[ arr => Array[2, UInt16...
## [v1.2.3] - 2026-08-08
### Fixed
- `Struct[...]` fields of type `WString` can now be assigned to (or as?) Perl strings (`SvPV`) rather than falling through and becoming null pointers
## [v1.2.2] - 2026-08-05
The headline is support for RISC-V!
### Fixed
- `malloc()`/`calloc()` pins no longer lose their `Affix::Memory` lifeline: the memory is kept alive for as long as any derived pin exists (fixes a use-after-free where the block could be handed out to a later allocation), and `free()` now works on p...
- `realloc()` no longer corrupts the `Affix::Memory` reference header when updating the stored address.
- [infix] Layout recalculation now descends into reverse trampolines, so a `Struct[...]` declared inline in a signature whose members referenced named types no longer has corrupted offsets.
### Added
- [infix] Support for RISC-V (rv64)
## [v1.2.1] - 2026-08-02
### Fixed
- Fixed `panic: free ... from wrong pool` crash at process exit on perls built with both debugging and threads enabled.
## [v1.2.0] - 2026-07-29
### Changed
- Affix::Build tests have been fenced off as author tests.
## [v1.1.0] - 2026-07-25
### Added
- V2 Pin System: Replaced the old `Affix_Pin` struct with `Affix_Pin_2_Point_Oh` backed by Perl Magic VTables, eliminating tied-variable overhead for all memory access.
- Reworked `Affix::Wrap` type parser to handle `const`, `restrict`, and `volatile` qualifiers, improved function pointer matching, and refactored the type map for cleaner code generation.
- Generated `Affix::Wrap` bindings now emit `Const[...]` for C `const`-qualified types, enabling compile-time safety in wrapper output.
- Added `Const[...]` type wrapper that prevents Perl-side mutation of C memory marked `const`. Replaces the old `Live` helper.
- Added struct bitfield array syntax so members can be declared as `[$name, $type, $width]`.
- Enum definitions now accept explicit integer values and arithmetic expressions (`FOO => BAR | 0x8`) in addition to sequential auto-increment.
- [infix] Added support for preserving character-specific primitive names (`wchar_t`, `char16_t`, `char32_t`, `char8_t`), enabling correct identification of string buffers via `infix_type_get_name()`.
### Changed
- WChar now maps to the platform-correct `wchar_t` type (uint16 on Windows, uint32 elsewhere) instead of hardcoded `uint16`.
- WString now platform-dependent (`*uint16` on Windows, `*uint32` elsewhere).
- StringList redefined as `Pointer[Pointer[Char]]` instead of the `@StringList` alias.
- Extended `_is_signature_string` to recognize `+`, `c[...]`, `v[...]`, and `e:` prefixed type strings.
- Do not rewind `args_arena` so pointers survive XSUB return (hopefully callee stored them).
### Fixed
- Fixed struct member callback assignment where `$pin->{fn} = sub { ... }` silently created a trampoline with 0 arguments, causing "Too few arguments" errors or crashes when C called through the function pointer. `Pointer[Callback[...]]` creates a do...
- `set_ptr` now croaks when a coderef is assigned to a non-callback pointer type instead of silently creating a broken 0-argument trampoline.
- Fixed fuzzer `struct_callback` variant's verify function to truncate expected values to the callback return type's width.
- Fixed packed struct layout where `Packed(Struct[...])` returned sizeof values matching unpacked structs.
- Replaced silent fallbacks with proper errors: unknown primitive type IDs in opcode dispatch and enum size handling now croak instead of silently misinterpreting memory.
- Added warning when callback type signature serialization fails instead of silently returning a raw pointer value.
- Fixed a sign-extension bug in 128-bit integer parsing.
- Fixed bitfield write-back logic to use proper bitmasking, preventing neighboring bit corruption.
- Corrected `wstring` (UTF-16/32) conversion to handle null-terminators properly in fixed-size arrays.
- Fixed `Affix::Wrap` eval-generated bindings on macOS where Clang emits Mach-O underscore-prefixed `mangledName` (`_return_six`), but `dlsym` expects the source-level name (`return_six`).
- [infix] Fixed RAX register preservation in Windows x64 reverse trampoline epilogue for void functions, preventing clobber of the return value register.
- [infix] Fixed SysV x64 reverse trampoline handling of `ARG_LOCATION_GPR_REFERENCE` for aggregates >16 bytes passed by reference.
- [infix] Corrected handling of aggregates classified as `MEMORY` during reverse trampoline calls in SysV.
## [v1.0.9] - 2026-03-05
This release focuses on refining the "Live" zero-copy system (ugh) and fixing bitfield write-back support (yay).
### Breaking Changes
- Replaced `LiveStruct`, `LiveArray`, and `LiveUnion` with a single `Live` wrapper. It now accepts any type object or signature (`Live[Struct[...]]`, `Live[Array[Int, 10]]`) and returns a live, zero-copy view. I hate this too but I'm workin' on it.
### Added
- Fully implemented write support for bitfields in live views. Modifying a bitfield member in an `Affix::Live` hash now correctly performs bit-masked writes to the underlying C memory.
- Added `LiveUnion` as a deprecated alias for the unified `Live()` classifier.
### Fixed
- Fixed an inconsistency where `Affix::Type::Array` objects were stringifying in a format incompatible with `cast`. They now correctly use the `$type[$count]` syntax.
- Updated the internal type stringifier to correctly resolve and prefer the `signature` method over `stringify`, ensuring consistent behavior across all `Affix::Type` objects.
- Fixed a bug in `Affix_cast` where the `live_hint` (`+`) was ignored for Arrays and Unions.
## [v1.0.8] - 2026-03-02
- Implemented thread-local permission toggling via `pthread_jit_write_protect_np` to maintain W^X compliance.
## [v1.0.5] - 2026-01-11
### Changed
- Affix::Wrap allows you to define your own types just in case the headers fail to parse completely.
## [v1.0.4] - 2026-01-10
This should just be a documentation cleanup cycle.
## [v1.0.3] - 2026-01-07
Based on infix v0.1.3
### Added
- Support for Variadic Functions (varargs):
- Implemented dynamic JIT compilation for C functions with variable arguments (e.g., `printf`).
- Added `variadic_cache` to cache trampolines for repeated calls, ensuring high performance.
- Implemented runtime type inference: Perl integers promote to `sint64`, floats to `double`, and strings to `*char`.
- Added `Affix::coerce($type, $value)` to explicitly hint types for variadic arguments. This allows passing structs by value or forcing specific integer widths where inference is insufficient.
- Cookbook: I'm putting together chapters on a wide range of topics at https://github.com/sanko/Affix.pm/discussions/categories/recipes
- `affix` and `wrap` functions now accept an address to bind to. This expects the library to be `undef` and jumps past the lib location and loading steps.
- Added `File` and `PerlIO` types.
- Allows passing Perl filehandles to C functions expecting standard C streams (`PerlIO*` => `Pointer[PerlIO]`).
- Allows receiving `FILE*` from C and using them as standard Perl filehandles (`FILE*` => `Pointer[File]`).
- A few new specialized pointer types:
- `StringList`: Automatically marshals an array ref of strings to a null-terminated `char**` array (and back). This is useful in instances where `argv` or a similar list is expected.
- `Buffer`: Allows passing a pre-allocated scalar as a mutable `char*` buffer to C (zero-copy write).
- `SockAddr`: Safe marshalling of Perl packed socket addresses to `struct sockaddr*`.
- Affix::Build: A polyglot shared library builder. Currently supports Ada, Assembly, C, C#, C++, Cobol, Crystal, Dlang, Eiffel, F#, Fortran, Futhark, Go, Haskell, Nim, OCaml, Odin, Pascal, Rust, Swift, Vlang, and Zig.
- Affix::Wrap: An experimental tool to introspect C header files and generate Affix bindings and documentation.
- Dual-Driver Architecture:
- `Affix::Wrap::Driver::Clang`: Uses the system `clang` executable to parse the AST for high-fidelity extraction of types, macros, and comments.
- `Affix::Wrap::Driver::Regex`: A zero-dependency fallback driver that parses headers using heuristics.
### Changed
- `Array[Char]` function arguments now accept Perl strings directly, copying the string data into the temporary C array.
- `Affix::errno()` now returns a dualvar containing both the numeric error code (`errno`/`GetLastError`) and the system error string (`strerror`/`FormatMessage`).
### Fixed
- Correctly implemented array decay for function arguments on ARM and Win64. `Array[...]` types are now marshalled into temporary C arrays and passed as pointers, matching standard C behavior. Previously, they were incorrectly passed by value, caus...
- Fixed binary safety for `Array[Char/UChar]`. Reading these arrays now respects the explicit length rather than stopping at the first null byte.
- The write-back mechanism no longer attempts to overwrite the read-only ArrayRef scalar with the pointer address.
- `Pointer[SV]` is now handled properly as args, return values, and in callbacks. Reference counting is automatic to prevent premature garbage collection of passed scalars.
- Shared libs written in Go spin up background threads (for GC and scheduling) that do not shut down cleanly when a shared library is unloaded. This often causes access violations on Windows during program exit. We attempt to work around this by de...
## [v1.0.2] - 2025-12-14
### Changed
- In an attempt to debug mystery failures in SDL3.pm, Affix.pm will warn and return `undef` instead of `croak`ing.
- Improved error reporting: if the internal error message is empty, the numeric error code is now included in the warning.
### Fixed
- [[infix]] Fixed a critical file descriptor leak on POSIX platforms (Linux/FreeBSD) where the file descriptor returned by `shm_open` was kept open for the lifetime of the trampoline, eventually hitting the process file descriptor limit (EMFILE). T...
- Fixed memory leaks that occurred when trampoline creation failed midway (cleaning up partial arenas, strings, and backend structures).
## [v1.0.1] - 2025-12-13
### Changed
- Improved Union marshalling: Union members are now exposed as pins within the hash. This allows clean syntax (like `$u->{member} = 5`) without needing to dereference a reference, while maintaining C-memory aliasing.
### Fixed
- Fixed `writeback_pointer_generic` to support writing back to scalar output parameters (pointers-to-pointers). This resolves issues where C functions returning handles via arguments would fail to populate the SV*/pin.
## [v1.0.0] - 2025-12-13
- Stable? Stable. Stable enough.
## [v0.12.0] - 2025-12-12
### Changed
- Affix is reborn! This is a complete rewrite
- Replaced dyncall with a JIT and introspection engine I've called [infix](https://github.com/sanko/infix.git)
## [0.11] - 2023-03-30
### Added
- Support for WChar
- Rough, basic support for mangled symbols:
- Itanium C++ ABI
- Rust (legacy)
- Expose dcNewCallVM( ... ) size variable
## [0.10] - 2023-03-11
### Changed
- Support for ArrayRef[] with dynamic size
- Support for empty Stuct[]
- Coerce Enum[] types with sv2ptr(...)
- Explicit undef values are turned into NULL in Pointer[], ArrayRef[], etc.
- Provide default values in Struct[]
- Ignore perl's PTRSIZE which might be different than the system's actual pointer size
- Cleanup VM on Affix::END()
- Simplify API around named subs
- Support for WStr (wchar_t *, PWSTR, etc.)
## [0.09] - 2023-01-26
### Added
- Structs may now contain a CodeRef
- CodeRef, Any, etc. are now properly handled as aggregate members
- Nesting CodeRefs used as callbacks work now
- Bind to exported values with pin()
- Expose aggregate by value and syscall support in Affix::Feature
- Survive callbacks with unexpectedly empty return values
- Delayed type resolution with InstanceOf
## [0.08] - 2022-12-19
( run in 0.917 second using v1.01-cache-2.11-cpan-a5162978ef8 )