Language-side Foreign Function Interfaces with NativeBoost

International audienceForeign-Function-Interfaces (FFIs) are a prerequisite for close system integration of a high-level language. With FFIs the high-level environment interacts with low-level functions allowing for a unique combination of features. This duality has a strong impact on the implementation of the FFI: it has to be flexible and fast at the same time. We propose NativeBoost a language-side approach to FFIs that only requires minimal changes to the VM. NativeBoost directly creates specific native code at language-side and thus combines the flexibility of a language-side library with the performance of a native plugin