Lessons learned from developing 64-bit C / C ++ applications

We regularly write articles devoted to the development and testing of 64-bit C / C ++ programs. Each article represents a look at the task of developing 64-bit programs from different points of view. But a significant part of the information in them is repeated, since it is necessary to acquaint the reader with the problems and introduce various definitions. This, unfortunately, makes reading a selection of articles a boring task and, accordingly, does not allow for a comprehensive study of the development issues of 64-bit applications.

We decided to combine all our knowledge into a single work, which will address all issues relating to 64-bit programming at once. For the design in the form of an article, the material turned out to be too much and we decided to present it as a course of lessons.

I will briefly describe the course " Lessons on developing 64-bit C / C ++ applications " and present its content.

The course is dedicated to the creation of 64-bit C / C ++ applications and is aimed at developers using the Visual Studio 2005/2008 environment. Developers for other 64-bit operating systems also learn a lot of interesting things. The course will cover all stages that allow you to create a new reliable 64-bit application or migrate an existing 32-bit code to a 64-bit system.
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The course consists of 28 lessons devoted to acquaintance with 64-bit systems, issues of assembling 64-bit applications, methods for searching for errors specific to a 64-bit code and code optimization. Questions such as estimating the cost of switching to 64-bit systems and the rationality of this transition are also considered.

I am the author of the course (PhD. Andrei Nikolaevich Karpov) and Ph.D. Ryzhkov Evgeny Alexandrovich. Accordingly, we are ready to discuss this course here, give explanations, correct the noticed shortcomings, take into account your opinion.

Course content:

• Lesson 01. What is 64-bit systems.
• Lesson 02. Support for 32-bit applications.
• Lesson 03. Porting code to 64-bit systems. Pros and cons.
• Lesson 04. Creating a 64-bit configuration.
• Lesson 05. Building a 64-bit application.
• Lesson 06. Errors in 64-bit code.
• Lesson 07. Problems of detecting 64-bit errors.
• Lesson 08. Static analysis to detect 64-bit errors.
• Lesson 09. Pattern 01. Magic numbers.
• Lesson 10. Pattern 02. Functions with a 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. Change the type of array.
• Lesson 15. Pattern 07. Packing pointers.
• Lesson 16. Pattern 08. Memsize-types in associations.
• Lesson 17. Pattern 09. Mixed arithmetic.
• Lesson 18. Pattern 10. Storing integer values ​​in double.
• Lesson 19. Pattern 11. Serialization and data exchange.
• Lesson 20. Pattern 12. Exceptions.
• Lesson 21. Pattern 13. Data alignment.
• Lesson 22. Pattern 14. Overloaded functions.
• Lesson 23. Pattern 15. Growth of size of structures.
• Lesson 24. Phantom errors.
• Lesson 25. Practical acquaintance with patterns of 64-bit errors.
• Lesson 26. Optimization of 64-bit programs.
• Lesson 27. Features of creating installers for 64-bit environments.
• Lesson 28. Estimation of the cost of the process of 64-bit migration of C / C ++ applications.