SPARC: 64-bit Developer Environment

The Solaris 7 operating environment provides developers with complete 32-bit and 64-bit development environments. Here are some of the highlights:

• 32-bit Solaris APIs are unchanged.

• 64-bit Solaris APIs are the same as 32-bit XPG5 (UNIX 98) APIs.

• Can build 32-bit and 64-bit applications and drivers on SPARC systems running 32-bit Solaris 7 software (with 64-bit support installed) or UltraSPARC systems running 64-bit Solaris 7 software.

• Shared header files support 32-bit and 64-bit programs.

• Separate libraries for 32-bit and 64-bit programs.

• Separate drivers for 32-bit and 64-bit kernels.

• PATHs unchanged.

• Large Files -- If an application requires only large files support, then it can remain 32-bit and use the Large Files interface. However, an application should be converted to 64-bit to take full advantage of 64-bit capabilities.

• $ORIGIN -- The linker supports a new keyword $ORIGIN that can be embedded in path names (specified with the -R flag) to enable library locations to be specified relative to the location of the running executable. For more information on $ORIGIN, see Linker and Libraries Guide.

• The bundled assembler on SPARC systems has been updated to support assembling both 32-bit and 64-bit SPARC assembler programs. The supported instructions sets include SPARC V8, SPARC V9 and the UltraSPARC-specific VIS instructions.

For more information, see Solaris 7 64-bit Developer's Guide.