portability – Page 2

How do you deal with Internet Explorer?

August 26, 2023 by Tarik

Do you specify a valid doctype? You can get Internet Explorer to be a bit more compliant by switching it into standards mode. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250395.aspx#cssenhancements_topic2 Do you use a browser reset CSS file? That can help bring the versions together. http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/ Be aware of IE’s CSS bugs: http://www.positioniseverything.net/explorer.html For the skeleton of your layout, consider using … Read more

What is the difference between a wrapper, a binding, and a port?

August 22, 2023 by Tarik

A wrapper is a bit of code that sits on top of other code to recycle it’s functionality but with a different interface. This usually implies an interface written in the same language. It should also be noted that sometimes people will say wrapper when what they technically mean is a binding (myself included). Pros: … Read more

Building a 32-bit float out of its 4 composite bytes

August 20, 2023 by Tarik

You could use a memcpy (Result) float f; uchar b[] = {b3, b2, b1, b0}; memcpy(&f, &b, sizeof(f)); return f; or a union* (Result) union { float f; uchar b[4]; } u; u.b[3] = b0; u.b[2] = b1; u.b[1] = b2; u.b[0] = b3; return u.f; But this is no more portable than your code, … Read more

What is the smallest possible Windows (PE) executable?

August 10, 2023 by Tarik

As quoted from source (Creating the smallest possible PE executable): 1 Smallest possible PE file: 97 bytes Smallest possible PE file on Windows 2000: 133 bytes Smallest PE file that downloads a file over WebDAV and executes it: 133 bytes The files above are the smallest possible PE files due to requirements of the PE … Read more

A step-up from TiddlyWiki that is still 100% portable?

August 9, 2023 by Tarik

After some time and serious consideration, I will post my own answer. There is nothing that matches TiddlyWiki. As for voluminous information, TW can pretty much handle it. (My early discouragements were due to malformed code.) Difficulty accessing information through the interface becomes an issue before any speed problems. This isn’t to fault the interface … Read more

GLIBCXX versions

August 2, 2023 by Tarik

Use readelf -a and objdump -x to inspect ELF files in preference to strings. Actually, all the GLIBCXX_* versions don’t apply to the entire library, but to each symbol (symbol versioning, see DSO-howto). So you can have e.g: std::char_traits<wchar_t>::eq@@GLIBCXX_3.4.5 and std::ios_base::Init::~Init()@@GLIBCXX_3.4 on the same library file. The fact that your program needs GLIBCXX_3.4.9 probably means … Read more

C++: Is there a standard definition for end-of-line in a multi-line string constant?

August 2, 2023 by Tarik

The intent is that a newline in a raw string literal maps to a single ‘\n’ character. This intent is not expressed as clearly as it should be, which has led to some confusion. Citations are to the 2011 ISO C++ standard. First, here’s the evidence that it maps to a single ‘\n’ character. A … Read more

Why bit endianness is an issue in bitfields?

July 8, 2023 by Tarik

By the C standard, the compiler is free to store the bit field pretty much in any random way it wants. You can never make any assumptions of where the bits are allocated. Here are just a few bit-field related things that are not specified by the C standard: Unspecified behavior The alignment of the … Read more

How can I mark a C++ class method as deprecated?

June 18, 2023 by Tarik

In C++14, you can mark a function as deprecated using the [[deprecated]] attribute (see section 7.6.5 [dcl.attr.deprecated]). The attribute-token deprecated can be used to mark names and entities whose use is still allowed, but is discouraged for some reason. For example, the following function foo is deprecated: [[deprecated]] void foo(int); It is possible to provide … Read more

What’s the difference between “int” and “int_fast16_t”?

June 13, 2023 by Tarik

int is a “most efficient type” in speed/size – but that is not specified by per the C spec. It must be 16 or more bits. int_fast16_t is most efficient type in speed with at least the range of a 16 bit int. Example: A given platform may have decided that int should be 32-bit … Read more