How should I handle "cast from ‘void*’ to ‘int’ loses precision" when compiling 32-bit code on 64-bit machine?

Question

I have a package that compiles and works fine on a 32-bit machine. I am now trying to get it to compile on a 64-bit machine and find the following error-

 error: cast from ‘void*’ to ‘int’ loses precision 

Is there a compiler flag to suppress these errors? or do I have to manually edit these files to avoid these casts?

Answer 1

The issue is that, in 32bits, an int (which is a 32bit integer) will hold a pointer value.

When you move to 64bit, you can no longer store a pointer in an int - it isn't large enough to hold a 64bit pointer. The intptr_t type is designed for this.

Answer 2

Your code is broken. It won't become any less broken by ignoring the warnings the compiler gives you.

What do you think will happen when you try to store a 64-bit wide pointer into a 32-bit integer? Half your data will get thrown away. I can't imagine many cases where that is the correct thing to do, or where it won't cause errors.

Fix your code. Or stay on the 32-bit platform that the code currently works on.

If your compiler defines intptr_t or uintptr_t, use those, as they are integer types guaranteed to be large enough to store a pointer.

If those types are not available, size_t or ptrdiff_t are also large enough to hold a pointer on most (not all) platforms. Or use long (is typically 64-bit on 64-bit platforms on the GCC compiler) or long long (a C99 types which most, but not all compilers, support in C++), or some other implementation-defined integral type that is at least 64 bits wide on a 64-bit platform.