64-bit Development

Program errors occurring while porting C++ code from 32-bit platforms on 64-bit ones are observed. Examples of the incorrect code and the ways to correct it are given. Methods and means of the code analysis which allow to diagnose the errors discussed, are listed.

The article describes the main steps which should be performed to correctly port 32-bit Windows applications on 64-bit Windows systems. Although the article is meant for developers using C/C++ in Visual Studio 2005/2008 environment, it will be also useful for other developers who plan to port their applications on 64-bit systems.

The purpose of this article is to answer some questions related to safe port of C/C++ code on 64-bit systems. The article is written as an answer to the topic often discussed on forums and related to the use of /Wp64 key and Viva64 tool.

Though the history of 64-bit systems development makes more than a decade, the appearance of 64-bit version of OS Windows raised new problems in the sphere of development and testing applications. In the article there are considered some mistakes connected with 64-bit C/C++ code development to OS Windows. The reasons are explained according to which these mistakes didn't find their reflection in the articles devoted to the migration tasks and are unsatisfactorily detected by the majority of static analyzers.

The article will familiarize application developers with tasks given them by the mass introduction of 64-bit multi-core processors symbolizing revolutionary increase of computing power available for an average user. It will also touch upon the problems of effective use of hardware resources for solving everyday applied tasks within the limits of Windows x64 operating system

Some means of 64-bit Windows applications performance increase are considered in the article.

The article concerns the peculiarities of Visual C++ compiler's behavior when generating 64-bit code and possible errors relating to it.

The article compares a specialized static analyzer Viva64 with universal static analyzers Parasoft C++Test and Gimpel Software PC-Lint. The comparison is carried within the framework of the task of porting 32-bit C/C++ code on 64-bit systems or developing new code with taking into account peculiarities of 64-bit architecture.

Appearance of 64-bit processors on PC market made developers face the task of converting old 32-bit applications for new platforms. After the migration of the application code it is highly probable that the code will work incorrectly. This article reviews questions related to software verification and testing. It also concerns difficulties a developer of 64-bit Windows application may face and the ways of solving them.

The article reveals the meaning of the term "64 bits". It briefly discusses the history of 64-bit system development, describes the most popular 64-bit processors of the Intel 64 architecture and the 64-bit Windows operating system.

The purpose of this commercial article is to show advantages of Viva64 tool throughout the life cycle of software development.

In this article, Anatoliy Kuznetsov answers the questions and tells us about the open BitMagic C++ Library.

64-bit systems appeared more than 10 years ago, but we became closely acquainted with them comparatively recently when they came to the mass computer market. More and more software developers talk about the necessity of the support of such systems. Formerly 64-bit processors were mainly spread in the field of prolonged and complicated calculations - computational modeling of hydrodynamics and flow dynamics processes, deformable solid body mechanics, ecology and molecular chemistry ones, etc. They were also used for the maintenance of some ultra-large data bases. But today systems based on these processors can be observed as typical work stations. So, is it really necessary to port the applications to the 64-bit platforms? And if the decision of the porting is made, then by what means can it be done with the least time and financial costs? Let us see.

Questions concerned with the release of drivers for 64-bit versions of Windows are considered in this article. Some typical problems and the ways of their solutions are listed in the article as well as tools which simplify the process of drivers developing.

The article formulates the rules of diagnosing potentially unsafe syntactic constructions in source code of C++ programs and describes the principles of building a static source code analyzer implementing support of the mentioned rules.

The article reviews the issues of providing safety of program code when adapting it for 64-bit systems.

The article observes some questions related to testing the 64-bit software. Some difficulties which a developer of resource-intensive 64-bit applications may face and the ways to overcome them are described.

The coming of 64-bit processors to the PC market causes a problem which the developers have to solve: the old 32-bit applications should be ported to the new platform. After such code migration an application may behave incorrectly. The article is elucidating question of development and appliance of static code analyzer for checking out of the correctness of such application. Some problems emerging in applications after recompiling in 64-bit systems are considered in this article as well as the rules according to which the code check up is performed.

Italian company E.G.S. S.r.l. deals with development of solutions in the field of simulation of triangle mesh-based 3D objects.

The article will help the readers understand what size_t and ptrdiff_t types are, what they are used for and when they must be used. The article will be interesting for those developers who begin creation of 64-bit applications where use of size_t and ptrdiff_t types provides high performance, possibility to operate large data sizes and portability between different platforms.

The development of the 64-bit solutions market has given some new tasks in the field of their verification and testing. The article describes one of such tools - Viva64. It's a lint-like static code analyzer assigned for exposure of errors related with the peculiarities of the 64-bit platforms. The prerequisites for the creation of such an analyzer and its connection with the "Detect 64-Bit Portability Issues" mode in C++ compiler Visual Studio 2005 are covered in the article.

The article is devoted to the issue of estimating complexity and cost of migration of applications to 64-bit platforms. Such aspects as availability of various components of an application, libraries and development tools are considered. An example of using PVS-Studio program tool for estimating migration is given. Although the mentioned PVS-Studio product is oriented on C and C++ applications in Windows system, Unix-developers (and developers working in other systems) will find the article useful too.

The article is a report about testing of portability of Loki library with 64-bit systems with the help of Viva64 code analyzer performed by OOO "Program Verification Systems" Company. It contains recommendations for users of the library. The article will be also useful for the users of other libraries built on templates for it describes the peculiarities of analysis of such libraries.

There were 64-bit processors, the operational systems, some programs. However completely all users have passed to 64 bits still far not. In article the reasons of it are considered.

While porting 32-bit software to 64-bit systems there may appear some errors in the code of applications which were written in C++ language. The cause for these hides in the alteration of the base data types (to be more exact, in the relations between them) with the new hardware platform.

The article briefly describes AMD64 architecture by AMD Company and its implementation EM64T by Intel Company. The architecture's peculiarities, advantages and disadvantages are described.

What did programmers get when 64-bit systems came to power? Besides the numerous advantages described in many advertising articles, programmers got the whole bunch of brainteasers, puzzles and even traps. Everyone who wants to get real advantages of using 64-bit systems has to face these ones.

This article is the most complete collection of examples of 64-bit errors in the C and C++ languages. The article is intended for Windows-application developers who use Visual C++, however, it will be useful for other programmers as well.