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Oracle® Solaris 64-bit Developer's Guide

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Updated: March 2019
 
 
Chapter 4

Converting Applications

This chapter provides the information that you need to convert your 32-bit applications to 64-bit applications.

    When you write or modify code for both the 32-bit and 64-bit compilation environments, you face two basic issues:

  • Data type consistency between the different data-type models

  • Interaction between the applications using different data-type models

Maintaining a single code-source with as few #ifdefs as possible is usually better than maintaining multiple source trees. Therefore, this chapter provides guidelines for writing code that works correctly in both 32-bit and 64-bit compilation environments. In some cases, the conversion of current code requires only a recompilation and relinking with the 64-bit libraries. However, for those cases where code changes are required, this chapter discusses the tools and strategies that make conversion easier.