[boost] Re: "Non-standard" bits of SGI STL

From: Moore, Paul (Paul.Moore_at_[hidden])
Date: 1999-09-08 03:52:20

From: Valentin Bonnard [mailto:Bonnard.V_at_[hidden]]
> Moore, Paul wrote:
> > The SGI STL implementation includes a few non-standard 
> > extensions (notably slist and hash_map). Would there be
> > any point in extracting those implementation (assuming
> > that is possible) and putting them into boost, so
> > that they are available for people not using the SGI STL?
> 
> Issues:
> 
> - different policies: SGI extentions are in namespace std, Boost 
>   libraries are in boost

Yes, although changing to have boost::slist and boost::hash_map is a
reasonable answer to that one.

> - you may just download the whole thing (SGI STL or STLport) and 
>   use it over your vendor's STL

Correct - but aren't there issues with how the SGI STL interacts with other
non-STL portions of vendor libraries (eg, iostreams)? I have no hard
evidence of this, but I recall seeing something to that effect.

> - we may just put a link the SGI STL page from the Boost page

That may be a good idea.

> - if you have the SGI STL installed, these files (povided by 
>   Boost) could conflict if what you suggest is done

Possibly, although I would hope that we could avoid that.

However, having looked at the SGI implementation, I don't think that the
slist and hash_map implementations could be extracted in a practical manner
(the inter-dependencies between files is too great). While I still think
that a non-SGI slist and hash_map implementation could be useful, I don't
think the advantage is worth the effort. Especially as that effort could
probably be better spent on implementing other things.

Thanks for the comments,
Paul.