The forgotten problems of 64-bit programs development

The forgotten problems of 64-bit
programs development
Author: Andrey Karpov

Date: 11.08.2007

Abstract
Though the history of 64-bit systems development makes more than a decade, the appearance of 64-bit
version of OS Windows raised new problems in the sphere of development and testing applications. In
the article there are considered some mistakes connected with 64-bit C/C++ code development to OS
Windows. The reasons are explained according to which these mistakes didn't find their reflection in the
articles devoted to the migration tasks and are unsatisfactorily detected by the majority of static
analyzers.

Introduction
The history of 64-bit programs is not new and makes more than a decade already [1]. In 1991 the first
64-bit microprocessor MIPS R4000 was released [2, 3]. Since that time the discussions concerning
porting programs to 64-bit systems have started in forums and articles. There began a discussion of the
problems related to the 64-bit programs development in C language. The following questions were
discussed: which data model is better, what is long long and many others. Here, for example, is an
interesting collection of messages [4] from comp.lang.c newsgroup concerning using long long type in C
language, which, in its turn, was related to 64-bit systems appearance.

The C language is one of the most widespread languages and it is sensitive to the change of the digit
capacity of data types. Because of its low-level features, it is necessary to constantly control the
correctness of the program ported to a new system in this language. It is natural that with the
appearance of 64-bit systems the developers all around the world faced the problems of providing
compatibility of the old source code with the new systems again. One of the indirect evidences of the
difficulty of program migration is a big number of data models which must be constantly taken into
consideration. Data model is a correlation of the size of base types in a programming language. Picture 1
shows the digit capacity of types in different data models, which we will refer to further on.

Picture 1. Data Models.

Existing Publications and Tools in the Sphere of Verification of 64-bit
Applications
Of course, it was not the first stage of digit capacity change. That's enough to recollect the transition
from 16-bit systems to 32-bit. It's natural that the acquired experience had a good influence on the
stage of migration to 64-bit systems.

But the migration to 64-bit systems had its own peculiarities because of which there appeared a number
of investigations and publications on these problems, for example [5, 6, 7].

Errors of the following kinds were pointed out by the authors of those times:

1. Packing pointers in types of a smaller digit capacity. For example, placing a pointer into int type
in the system with LP64 database will result in truncating the pointer value and impossibility to
use it further on.
2. Using magic numbers. The danger consists in using such numbers as 4, 32, 0x80000000 and
some others instead of special constants or using the sizeof() operator.
3. Some shift operations that do not take into account the increase of digit capacity of some types.
4. Using incorrect unions or structures not taking into account the alignment on different systems
with different digit capacity.
5. Incorrect usage of bit fields.
6. Some arithmetic expressions. For example:

int x = 100000, y = 100000, z = 100000;

long long s = x * y * x;

Some other more rare mistakes were also considered, but the main ones are mentioned in the list.

On the ground of the investigation of the question of verification of 64-bit code some solutions were
offered that provide the diagnostics of dangerous constructions. For example, such verification was
realized in Gimpel Software PC-Lint (http://www.gimpel.com) and Parasoft C++test
(http://www.parasoft.com) static analyzers.

The following question arises: if 64-bit systems have existed for such a long period of time, as well as
articles concerning this problem, and even program tools that provide control over dangerous
constructions in the code, should we get back to this problem?

Unfortunately, yes, we should. The reason is the progress of informational technologies. And the
urgency of this question is related to fast spreading of 64-bit versions of OS Windows.

The existing informational support and tools in the field of 64-bit technologies development went out of
date and need fundamental reprocessing. But you will object, saying that there are many modern
articles (2005-2007) in the Internet concerning the problems of 64-bit applications development in
C/C++ language. Unfortunately, they turn out to be no more than retelling older articles concerning new
64-bit Windows version without taking into consideration its peculiarities and changes in technologies.

The Untouched Problems of 64-bit Programs Development
Let us start at the beginning. The authors of some articles don't take into consideration large memory
capacity that became available to modern applications. Of course, the pointers were 64-bit in ancient
times yet, but such programs didn't have chance to use arrays of several gigabytes in size. As a result,
both in old and new articles there appeared a whole stratum of errors related to incorrect indexing of
big arrays. It is practically impossible to find a description of an error similar to the following:

for (int x = 0; x != width; ++x)

for (int y = 0; y != height; ++y)

for (int z = 0; z != depth; ++z)

BigArray[z * width * height + y * width + x] = InitValue;

In this example the expression "z * width * height + y * width + x", which is used for addressing, has the
int type, which means that the code will be incorrect if the arrays contain more that 2 GB of elements.
On 64-bit systems one should use types like ptrdiff_t and size_t for a safer indexing of large arrays. The
absence of a description of errors of this kind in the article can easily be explained. In the time when the
articles were written the machines with memory capacity, which makes it possible to store such arrays
were practically not available. Now it becomes a common task in programming, and we can watch with
a great surprise how the code that has been serving faithfully for many years stopped working correctly
dealing with big data arrays at 64-bit systems.

The other stratum of problems, which has not been touched, is represented by errors related to
possibilities and peculiarities of the C++ language. It also quite explicable why it happened so. During the
introduction of first 64-bit systems C++ language did not exist for them or was not spread. That's why
practically all the articles are concerning problems in the field of C language. Modern authors
substituted C with C/C++ but they didn't add anything new.

But the absence of errors typical for C++ in the articles does not mean that they don't exist. There are
errors that show up during the migration of programs to 64-bit systems. They are related to virtual

functions, exceptions, overloaded functions and so on. You may get acquainted with such mistakes in
the article [8] in more detail. Let us give an example related to usage of virtual functions.

class CWinApp {

...

virtual void WinHelp(DWORD_PTR dwData, UINT nCmd);

};

class CSampleApp : public CWinApp {

...

virtual void WinHelp(DWORD dwData, UINT nCmd);

};

Let us follow the life cycle of development of a certain application. Let us suppose that first it was
developed in Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. when WinHelp function in CWinApp class had the following
prototype:

virtual void WinHelp(DWORD dwData, UINT nCmd = HELP_CONTEXT);

It was correct to override the virtual function in CSampleApp class like it is shown in the example. Then
the project was ported to Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 where the prototype of the function in CWinApp
class was changed so that the DWORD type changed into the DWORD_PTR type. The program will
continue working correctly at a 32-bit system for the DWORD and DWORD_PTR types coincide here. The
problem will show up during the compilation of the code on a 64-bit platform. There will come out two
functions with identical names but with different parameters, as the result the user's code will never be
activated.

Besides the peculiarities of 64-bit programs development from the point of view of C++ language there
are other points to be paid attention to. For example, the peculiarities related to the architecture of 64-
bit versions of Windows. We'd like to let developer know about possible problems and to recommend
paying more attention to testing 64-bit software.

Now let us get back to the methods of verification of the source code using static analyzers. I think you
have already guessed that everything is not so nice here as it may seem. In spite of the declared support
for diagnosing the peculiarities of 64-bit code, this support at the moment does not meet the necessary
conditions. The reason is that the diagnostic rules were created according to all those articles that do
not take into account the peculiarities of the C++ language or processing large data arrays, that exceed 2
GB.

For Windows developers the case is somewhat worse. The main static analyzers are designed to
diagnose 64-bit errors for the LP64 data model while Windows use the LLP64 data model [10]. The
reason is that 64-bit versions of Windows are young and older 64-bit systems were represented by Unix-
like systems with LP64 data model.

As an example let us consider the diagnostic message 3264bit_IntToLongPointerCast (port-10), which is
generated by the Parasoft C++test analyzer.

int *intPointer;

long *longPointer;

longPointer = (long *)intPointer; //-ERR port-10

C++test supposes that from the point of view of LP64 model this construction will be incorrect. But in
the scope of data model accepted in Windows this construction will be safe.

Recommendations on Verification of 64-bit Programs
Ok, you will say, the problems of 64-bit program versions are urgent. But how to detect all the errors?

It is impossible to give an exhaustive answer, but it is quite possible to give a number of
recommendations that will make it possible to provide safe migration to 64-bit systems and to provide
the necessary level of reliability.

• Introduce the following articles to your colleagues who deal with 64-bit applications
development: [7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15].
• Introduce the methodology of the static code analyzer: [16, 17, and 18] to your colleagues. The
static code verification is one of the best ways of detecting errors of this type. It makes it
possible to check the workability even of the parts of code, the work of which is difficult to be
modeled at large data volumes, for example using the unit-tests methodology.
• It will be useful for developers to get acquainted with such static analyzers as Parasoft C++test
(www.parasoft.com), Gimpel Software PC-lint (www.gimpel.com), Abraxas Software CodeCheck
(www.abxsoft.com).
• For Windows applications developers it will be especially useful to get acquainted with the
specialized static analyzer, Viva64 (www.viva64.com) designed for the LLP64 data model [19].
• Upgrade the system of unit-testing so that it includes processing of large arrays in the set of
tests. You may get more detailed information about the necessity of this at large data volumes
in [9], and also to learn how to organize the testing better.
• Execute manual testing of the ported code at real, difficult tasks that use possibilities of 64-bit
systems. The change of the architecture is too considerable change to rely on the automated
testing systems completely.

References
1. John R. Mashey, The Long Road to 64 Bits.
http://www.viva64.com/go.php?url=20
2. Wikipedia: MIPS architecture.
3. John R. Mashey, 64 bit processors: history and rationale.
4. John R. Mashey, The 64-bit integer type "long long": arguments and history.
5. 64-bit and Data Size Neutrality.
6. 64-Bit Programming Models: Why LP64?

7. Hewlett-Packard. Transitioning C and C++ programs to the 64-bit data model.
8. Andrey Karpov, Evgeniy Ryzhkov. 20 issues of porting C++ code on the 64-bit platform.
http://www.viva64.com/art-1-2-599168895.html
9. Andrey Karpov. Evgeniy Ryzhkov. Problems of testing 64-bit applications.
10. The Old New Thing: Why did the Win64 team choose the LLP64 model?
11. Brad Martin, Anita Rettinger, and Jasmit Singh. Multiplatform Porting to 64 Bits.
12. Migrating 32-bit Managed Code to 64-bit.
13. Matt Pietrek. Everything You Need To Know To Start Programming 64-Bit Windows Systems.
14. Microsoft Game Technology Group. 64-bit programming for Game Developers.
15. John Paul Mueller. 24 Considerations for Moving Your Application to a 64-bit Platform.
16. Wikipedia: Static code analysis.
17. Sergei Sokolov. Bulletproofing C++ Code.
18. Walter W. Schilling, Jr. and Mansoor Alam. Integrate Static Analysis Into a Software
Development Process.
19. Evgeniy Ryzhkov. Viva64: what is it and for whom is it meant?

The forgotten problems of 64-bit programs development

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