The PORTING checkers identify code that might rely on specific implementation details in different compilers. The PORTING.STRUCT.BOOL checker detects situations in which a structure or class has a boolean member.

Vulnerability and risk

This checker warns you of a situation in which data structures contain members of the 'bool' data type. Because different compilers represent this data type as a byte, a word, or any other integral layout, the overall layout in memory of the data structure could be significantly offset when changing compilers.

Mitigation and prevention

The best way to handle this problem is to use an abstract data type to represent the value, so that you can control exactly how wide the data member is. Other alternatives are compiler directives or command line switches on the new platform.