Editing C++ (section)

===Fixed length integers===

Much of the code we write requires fixed length integers.  There are many compiler-specific ways of specifying fixed-length integers.  Commonly, people who want to use fixed length integers on many platforms have a custom header file with many #ifdefs and typedefs to handle many different compilers and platforms.  Don't do this, it's not very robust.  Instead, use only the C++ standard fixed length integer types.

So... what are the C++ standard fixed length integer types?  The bad news is, there aren't any - yet.  The new C++ standard, C++0x, does in fact include standard fixed length integers.  However, not all compilers support C++0x yet (notably Microsoft compilers don't).

The best interm solution is to use cstdint.hpp from boost.  This is identical to the C++0x standard, but works on any compiler.