Re: [boost] FORMAL review of "Output Formatters" - votes needed

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-24 16:36:56

John Torjo wrote:
> Dear boosters,
> 
> There's been quite a hot debate about "Output Formatters" library.
> 
> Reece has provided some input facilies in this library as well.
> This has drawn people to either sides: some don't want these input 
> facilities, while others do.
> 
> To conclude, I would like to ask you to vote:
> - "Yes" - in favor of Input facilities
> - "No"  - don't want Input facilities.
> 
> 
> My personal vote is "No".
> Please share your own.

I don't know if I am allowed to vote here, but I would like to point out 
a few things:

[1] The library provides operator << (output) for STL containers. Thus, 
you can do:

    ss << vec;

If input facilities were not provided, you couldn't do:

    ss >> vec; // oops! operator >> not defined for std::vector<...>

NOTE: You would then need to implement these facilities using 
Boost.Spirit which will add a dependency on that library.

[2] The direct result of not supporting [1] is that you cannot utilize 
Roland Richter's usage:

    std::list<char> cl = lexical_cast< std::list<char> >( "[ a, b, c ]" );

[3] Input and output operations are symmetric operations. Why provide 
output for std::complex if you don't provide input?

Boost.Spirit does not provide output functionality because it is 
designed as a lexer/parser implementation tool that are focused on input 
processing only.

Regards,
Reece