Lessons on the development of 64-bit C/C++ applications

This course was developed in 2010. However, it hasn't become obsolete and the information given in it is relevant enough for modern Visual Studio versions.

The course is devoted to the creation of 64-bit applications in C/C++ language, and is intended for Windows developers who use the Visual Studio 2005/2008/2010 environment. Developers working with other 64-bit operating systems will learn many interesting as well. The course will consider all steps in creating a new safe 64-bit application, or migrating the existing 32-bit code to a 64-bit system.

The course is composed of 28 lessons devoted to the introduction to 64-bit systems, issues of building 64-bit applications, methods of searching errors specific to 64-bit code, and code optimization. Questions such as estimation of cost incurred in moving to 64-bit systems, and rationality of such moves, are also addressed.

The authors of the course:

• candidate of physicomathematical sciences Andrey Nikolaevich Karpov;
• candidate of technical sciences Evgeniy Alexandrovich Ryzhkov.

The authors are involved in maintaining the quality of 64-bit applications and participate in development of PVS-Studio static code analyzer for verifying the code of resource-intensive applications.

The right holder of the course is OOO "Program Verification Systems".

• The company's site: http://www.viva64.com/en/pvs-studio/.
• Contacts: e-mail: support@viva64.com

The contents of the course

• Lesson 01. What 64-bit systems are.
• Lesson 02. Support of 32-bit applications.
• Lesson 03. Porting code to 64-bit systems. The pros and cons.
• Lesson 04. Creating the 64-bit configuration.
• Lesson 05. Building a 64-bit application.
• Lesson 06. Errors in 64-bit code.
• Lesson 07. The issues of detecting 64-bit errors.
• Lesson 08. Static analysis for detecting 64-bit errors.
• Lesson 09. Pattern 01. Magic numbers.
• Lesson 10. Pattern 02. Functions with variable number of arguments.
• Lesson 11. Pattern 03. Shift operations.
• Lesson 12. Pattern 04. Virtual functions.
• Lesson 13. Pattern 05. Address arithmetic.
• Lesson 14. Pattern 06. Changing an array's type.
• Lesson 15. Pattern 07. Pointer packing.
• Lesson 16. Pattern 08. Memsize-types in unions.
• Lesson 17. Pattern 09. Mixed arithmetic.
• Lesson 18. Pattern 10. Storage of integer values in double.
• Lesson 19. Pattern 11. Serialization and data interchange.
• Lesson 20. Pattern 12. Exceptions.
• Lesson 21. Pattern 13. Data alignment.
• Lesson 22. Pattern 14. Overloaded functions.
• Lesson 23. Pattern 15. Growth of structures' sizes.
• Lesson 24. Phantom errors.
• Lesson 25. Working with patterns of 64-bit errors in practice.
• Lesson 26. Optimization of 64-bit programs.
• Lesson 27. Peculiarities of creating installers for a 64-bit environment.
• Lesson 28. Estimating the cost of 64-bit migration of C/C++ applications.

The course's duration: the course requires that you study each of the 28 lessons on your own in 20-40 minutes. The total time study time for all material is about 18 hours.

You may open all the lessons in one file (the print version as well). This single file may be printed with the help of a common printer, or converted into a pdf-file with the help of a pdf-printer.