Impact on the C/C++ programming model

Several kinds of changes may be required by programmers; the extent to which these changes impact a particular library or application will depend significantly on its idiomatic use of C. Our experience suggests that low-level system components such as run-time linkers, debuggers, memory allocators, and language runtimes require a modest but non-trivial porting effort. Similarly, support classes that include, for example, custom synchronization features, may also require moderate adaptation. Other applications may compile with few or no changes — especially if they are already portable across 32-bit and 64-bit platforms and are written in a contemporary C or C++ dialect. In the following sections, we consider various kinds of programmer-visible changes required in the CHERI C/C++ programming environment. In many cases, compiler warnings and errors can be used to identify potential issues compiling code as CHERI C/C++ (see CHERI compiler warnings and errors).