Different execution behaviour between 32 and 64-bit systems
Execution behaviour may differ between systems.
- If we send code intended for a 64-bit system to a 32-bit system we may get overflows
- If we send code intended for a 32-bit system to a 64-bit things will probably work fine unless the programmer uses overflows
There are broadly two ways to deal with this:
- Ignore the issue and make sure the programmer is aware of this. They can then decide how to deal with it, e.g. write code that works for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems or choose to only support one of the two
- Include information about the source system in the bytecode, and support both 64-bit and 32-bit interpretation on both 64 and 32-bit systems
We need to decide what route to take.
Edited by Clean Importer