How do I port MS Visual studio code (specifically HANDLE type) to c++?

[emp1953]

Porting an application from MS Visual Studio to Linux c++ Many references to data type HANDLE, DWORD?

What are the best ways to port these windows "features"?

One example:
HANDLE commsdown;

The app has a serial port communications capability. Apparently the number of times that serial communications are interrupted is important.

Thanks

[emp1953]

I forgot to include another data type which is DATE. In windows it is an 8bit floating point representation of the date and time from December 30 1899. I wrote a function in my c++ app that captures the system date and time in the required format. Now I have to alter that function to return that info to the calling function. I guess it has to be a string. No matter how I structure the function it either fails to compile or does not return the string. I have to do comparisons on data in that string which the DATE type in windows apparently makes an easy task of. Comparing parts of a string to a threshold of some sort is tricky.