Re: [boost] Compiling with Clang 3.7.0 from windows

Subject: Re: [boost] Compiling with Clang 3.7.0 from windows
From: Paul A. Bristow (pbristow_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-09-07 05:13:03

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Boost [mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Edward Diener
> Sent: 06 September 2015 22:46
> To: boost_at_[hidden]
> Subject: Re: [boost] Compiling with Clang 3.7.0 from windows
> 
> > Also, what do we want to accomplish by using clang and mingw? Better
> > error/warning reporting from clang? Something else?
> 
> 1) It adds two more compilers to test Boost on Windows, other that just
> VC++.
> 2) Both gcc and clang are better C++ standard conforming compilers than
> VC++ has been. I trust what they find as C++ standard conformance errors
> more than I trust VC++.
> 3) The VC++ preprocessor remains "broken" still with VC++ 14 ( VS2015 ).
> It's impossible to write/test macro code, as I have done with VMD and Boost PP, without being able
to
> check highly conformant preprocessor such as gcc and clang. Of course Boost Wave is also an
> enormous help.
> 4) I think VC++ has done an admirable job reporting complicated template misuse errors in its
output,
> but both gcc and even more so  clang are also first-rate in reporting such others. You can never
have
> "enough"
> different ways at looking at template errors to discover what may be wrong in your template code.

Agree with all these objectives, but can I add one more aim that I feel is really quite important.

Doxygen-syntax comments are a good way to document code so that Doxygen or some other tool can
process it to produce C++ Reference documentation automatically.

At present, many libraries use Doxygen (often with Quickbook) to do this.  But Doxygen is not a
compiler and its parsing, (though impressive for what it was designed C, FORTRAN and others) is
often somewhat confused by the intensity of templating and meta-templating in many Boost libraries.
An option to use the Clang compiler is under development and close to working - but that will
require that one has a working Clang compiler.

Paul

---
Paul A. Bristow
Prizet Farmhouse
Kendal UK LA8 8AB
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