32- and 64-Bit Architectures Parent topic: 32- and 64-Bit Architectures

Other tips for programming

Parsing executables
Executables/shared objects are ELF64; use libelf or libgl to parse them when possible.
32- and 64-bit message compatibility
Don't pass messages where a field changes size between 32- and 64-bit architectures.
Change fields to a consistent type
  • s/unsigned long/unsigned
  • Use when additional length isn't required and the field type isn't specified by an external standard.
Create a “messenger” type
  • Use when field types are specified by an external standard, but we don't really need the extra space.
  • Client side does field-by-field assignments to copy user type to/from the messenger type.
  • For example, struct __msg_mq_attr
Create a new message type
  • Do this when there isn't enough space in the existing message structure.
  • Hide extra information in previously reserved fields (e.g., _IO_READ64), or extend the structure (e.g., _IO_NOTIFY64)
  • Maintain field offsets for as many fields as possible to ease handling; add new fields to the end, and rename existing fields rather than deleting them.
Parent topic: 32- and 64-Bit Architectures