Re: [boost] [GSOC] XML library of Boost

Subject: Re: [boost] [GSOC] XML library of Boost
From: Stefan Seefeld (stefan_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-05-01 16:16:02

On 2013-05-01 15:53, ¼§ Ã÷³¬ wrote:
> ÔÚ 2013-5-2£¬ÉÏÎç3:34£¬legalize+jeeves_at_[hidden] (Richard) дµÀ£º
>> I think boost.multiprecision has a good example to follow: you specify
>> a back-end as a template argument, where the backends can be an
>> existing library or a boost licensed implementation.  The boost
>> licensed implementation needn't be as fast or memory efficient as the
>> existing libraries, the emphasis should be on simplest implementation
>> that can satisfy the backend requirements of the front end library,
>> without beeing too slow or memory intensive.
> Thanks for your helpful instruction! I'll look into boost.multiprecision to see how it solve this problem.

I honestly doubt that making the choice of backend a template parameter
is an appropriate approach, at least for boost.xml. Why would someone
want to control this choice by means of a template parameter, as opposed
to a configuration / build system flag ? Would you want to instantiate
multiple backend bindings in the same application ?

> But according to your explanation, boost still need its own xml library implementation. Am I correct?

That's exactly what I was referring to as a "foolish idea": XML is big,
and implementing a conforming API a highly non-trivial (multi-year) task.

> Currently, boost use rapidXML, a 3rd-party xml library, to read or write xml files.

I think boost uses a couple of implementations, none of which are truly
XML compliant (mostly because they only care about subsets of the spec,
depending on what use-case they are targeting).
> Then I think this project can be divided into two parts. 
> 1. Define a good API and map it to some 3rd-party libraries such as libxml2.
> 2. Implement a simple xml library for boost.

I think 2. is far too ambitious for a GSoC project. I'd thus focus on 1.
Specifically, I would start with existing C++ XML APIs (including my
boost.xml sandbox project, as well as arabica), and improve and refine
them, as appropriate.

Stefan

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