This chapter provides the information you need for writing code for the 32–bit or the 64-bit compilation environment.
Once you try to 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.