Re: [sc-dev] Removing ULONG

Am 01/17/2011 11:12 PM, schrieb Regina Henschel:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm currently looking in ScBinomDist to remove the PushNoValue() cases.
> I see a lot of ULONG there and as Carsten has announced, that ULONG will
> be removed, my question now, how I should replace it.
>
> The parameters n (total number of independent trials) and x (number of
> successful trials) are integers in ODF. As we store them in double, they
> are exact up to 48Bit. The code has some for-loops up to this
> parameters. What type shall I use for the index i in the loops?
Hi Regina,

ULONG is the most problematic type in tools/solar.h. The current mapping 
is that ULONG is the same type as sal_uIntPtr (which means an unsigned 
integer which can store a pointer). That's not exactly true for every 
code which I have seen during the conversion. There is old code which 
assumes that ULONG is the same type as sal_uInt32. There is also other 
code which assumes that ULONG can store a pointer. Both assumptions are 
true for (as far as I know) all 32-Bit systems but not for 64-Bit!
Therefore we "created" a new type called "sal_uLong" (typedef 
sal_uIntPtr) which should only be a temporary solution. Hopefully 
developers who work on code, exchange sal_uLong with the correct type 
depending on the context. The new type "sal_uLong" was only used for the 
semi-automatic tools type removal and should NEVER be used for new code.
Normally it's safe to use unsigned long or a sal_uInt-type. Attention 
must be paid to code which is used to stream to/from the file system. 
Using sal_uIntPtr there would be a real problem due to the difference 
between 32- and 64-Bit systems.

Regards,
Carsten