- Just What Exactly Is '64-Bit'?
- Why Move to 64-Bit?
- That Extra 64-Bit Memory and Legacy Code
- Using ptrdiff_t
- A World Beyond 64 Bits?
- A Really Simple Way to Build 64-bit C++
- Conclusion
That Extra 64-Bit Memory and Legacy Code
The extra memory capacity of a 64-bit architecture allows for very large data structures. This is great! Code can now access vast memory structures and potentially achieve significant speed improvements. However, legacy code may have been written with certain assumptions in mind, specifically in the data type used to store array indices. A simple fact with 64-bit code is that the legacy code data type may now be too small for the extended range. Let's look at an example to get a feel for the new and preferred data format for 64-bit array access.