Boost Announcement :

garcia_at_[hidden]

---
:Author: Andrey Semashev
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://tinyurl.com/cm9lum>`__
:Description: The library is aimed to help adding logging features to
   applications. It provides out-of-box support for many widely used
   capabilities, such as formatting and filtering based on attributes,
   sending logs to a syslog server or to Windows Event Log, or simply
   storing logs into files. It also provides basic support for the
   library initialization from a settings file. The library can also be
   used for a wider range of tasks and implement gathering and  
processing
   statistical information or notifying user about application events.
Join
----
:Author: Yigong Liu
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: http://channel.sourceforge.net/
:Description: Join is an asynchronous, message based C++ concurrency
   library based on join calculus. It is applicable both to
   multi-threaded applications and to the orchestration of asynchronous,
   event-based applications. It follows Comega's design and
   implementation and builds with Boost facilities. It provides a high
   level concurrency API with asynchronous methods, synchronous methods,
   and chords which are "join-patterns" defining the synchronization,
   asynchrony, and concurrency.
Pimpl
-----
:Author: Vladimir Batov
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: | `Boost Vault <http://www.boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=Pimpl.zip&directory=& 
 >`__
            | http://www.ddj.com/cpp/205918714 (documentation)
:Description: The Pimpl idiom is a simple yet robust technique to
   minimize coupling via the separation of interface and implementation
   and then implementation hiding.  This library provides a convenient
   yet flexible and generic deployment technique for the Pimpl idiom.
   It's seemingly complete and broadly applicable, yet minimal, simple
   and pleasant to use.
Thread Pool
-----------
:Author: Oliver Kowalke
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&amp;filename=boost-threadpool.2.tar.gz&amp;directory=Concurrent%20Programming 
 >`__
:Description:
   The library provides:
     - thread creation policies: determines the management of worker  
threads:
        - fixed set of threads in pool
        - create workerthreads on demand (depending on context)
        - let worker threads ime out after certain idle time
     - channel policies: manages access to queued tasks:
        - bounded channel with high and low watermark for queuing tasks
        - unbounded channel with unlimited number of queued tasks
        - rendezvous syncron hand-over between producer and consumer  
threads
     - queueing policy: determines how tasks will be removed from  
channel:
        - FIFO
        - LIFO
        - priority queue (attribute assigned to task)
        - smart insertions and extractions (for instance remove oldest  
task with          certain attribute by newst one)
     - tasks can be chained and lazy submit of taks is also supported  
(thanks to
       Braddocks future library).
     - returns a task object from the submit function. The task it  
self can
       be interrupted if its is cooperative (means it has some  
interruption points
       in its code -> ``this_thread::interruption_point()`` ).
Endian
------
:Author: Beman Dawes
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: http://mysite.verizon.net/beman/endian-0.10.zip
:Description:
   Header boost/integer/endian.hpp provides integer-like byte-holder
   binary types with explicit control over byte order, value type, size,
   and alignment. Typedefs provide easy-to-use names for common
   configurations.
   These types provide portable byte-holders for integer data,
   independent of particular computer architectures. Use cases almost
   always involve I/O, either via files or network connections. Although
   data portability is the primary motivation, these integer byte- 
holders
   may also be used to reduce memory use, file size, or network activity
   since they provide binary integer sizes not otherwise available.
Meta State Machine
------------------
:Author: Christophe Henry
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?direction=0&amp;order=&amp;directory=Msm 
 >`__
:Description:  Msm is a framework which enables you to build a Finite  
State Machine
   in a straightforward, descriptive and easy-to-use manner . It  
requires
   minimal effort to generate a working program from an UML state  
machine
   diagram. This work was inspired by the state machine described in the
   book of David Abrahams and Aleksey Gurtovoy "C++ Template
   Metaprogramming" and adds most of what UML Designers are expecting
   from an UML State Machine framework:
   * Entry and Exit Methods
   * Guard Conditions
   * Sub state machines (also called composite states in UML)
   * History
   * Terminate Pseudo-State
   * Deferred Events
   * Orthogonal zones
   * Explicit entry into sub state machine states
   * Fork
   * Entry / Exit pseudo states
   * Conflicting transitions
Conversion
----------
:Author: Vicente Botet
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&amp;filename=conversion.zip&amp;directory=Utilities&amp; 
 >`__
:Description:
   Generic explicit conversion between unrelated types.
   Boost.Conversion provides:
    * a generic ``convert_to`` function which can be specialized by  
the user to
      make explicit conversion between unrelated types.
    * a generic ``assign_to`` function which can be specialized by the  
user to
      make explicit assignation between unrelated types.
    * conversion between ``std::complex`` of explicitly convertible  
types.
    * conversion between ``std::pair`` of explicitly convertible types.
    * conversion between ``boost::optional`` of explicitly convertible  
types.
    * conversion between ``boost::rational`` of explicitly convertible  
types.
    * conversion between ``boost::interval`` of explicitly convertible  
types.
    * conversion between ``boost::chrono::time_point`` and  
``boost::ptime``.
    * conversion between ``boost::chrono::duration`` and  
``boost::time_duration``.
Sorting
-------
:Author: Steven Ross
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&amp;filename=algorithm_sorting.zip 
 >`__
:Description:
   A grouping of 3 templated hybrid radix/comparison-based sorting
   algorithms that provide superior worst-case and average-case
   performance to std::sort: integer_sort, which sorts fixed-size data
   types that support a rightshift (default of >>) and a comparison
   (default of <) operator.  float_sort, which sorts standard
   floating-point numbers by safely casting them to integers.
   string_sort, which sorts variable-length data types, and is optimized
   for 8-bit character strings.
   All 3 algorithms have O(n(k/s + s)) runtime where k is the number of
   bits in the data type and s is a constant, and limited memory  
overhead
   (in the kB for realistic inputs).  In testing, integer_sort varies
   from 35% faster to 8X as fast as std::sort, depending on processor,
   compiler optimizations, and data distribution.  float_sort is roughly
   7X as fast as std::sort on x86 processors.  string_sort is roughly 2X
   as fast as std::sort.
GIL.IO
------
:Author: Christian Henning
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `GIL Google Code Vault <http://gil-contributions.googlecode.com/files/rc2.zip 
 >`__
:Description: I/O extension for ``boost::gil`` which allows reading and
   writing of/in various image formats ( tiff, jpeg, png, etc ). This
   review will also include the Toolbox extension which adds some common
   functionality to gil, such as new color spaces, algorithms, etc.
AutoBuffer
----------
:Author: Thorsten Ottosen
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `Here <http://www.cs.aau.dk/~nesotto/boost/ 
auto_buffer.zip>`__
:Description:
   Boost.AutoBuffer provides a container for efficient dynamic, local  
buffers.
   Furthermore, the container may be used as an alternative to  
std::vector,
   offering greater flexibility and sometimes better performance.
String Convert
--------------
:Author: Vladimir Batov
:Review Manager: Needed
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&amp;filename=boost-string-convert.zip 
 >`__
:Description:
   The library takes the approach of boost::lexical_cast in the area of
   string-to-type and type-to-string conversions, builds on the past
   boost::lexical_cast experience and advances that conversion
   functionality further to additionally provide:
   * throwing and non-throwing conversion-failure behavior;
   * support for the default value to be returned when conversion fails;
   * two types of the conversion-failure check -- basic and better/safe;
   * formatting support based on the standard I/O Streams and the  
standard
   (or user-defined) I/O Stream-based manipulators
   (like std::hex, std::scientific, etc.);
   * locale support;
   * support for boost::range-compliant char and wchar_t-based string  
containers;
   * no DefaultConstructibility requirement for the Target type;
   * consistent framework to uniformly incorporate any type-to-type  
conversions.
   It is an essential tool with applications making extensive use of
   configuration files or having to process/prepare considerable amounts
   of data in, say, XML, etc.
Libraries under development
===========================
Please let us know of any libraries you are currently
developing that you intend to submit for review.
Mirror
------
:Author: Matus Chochlik
:Download: | http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/mirror/doc/index.html
	   | `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&amp;filename=mirror.zip 
 >`__
:Description:
  The aim of the Mirror library is to provide useful meta-data at both
  compile-time and run-time about common C++ constructs like namespaces,
  types, typedef-ined types, classes and their base classes and member
  attributes, instances, etc. and to provide generic interfaces for
  their introspection.
  Mirror is designed with the principle of stratification in mind and
  tries to be as less intrusive as possible. New or existing classes do
  not need to be designed to directly support Mirror and no Mirror
  related code is necessary in the class' definition, as far as some
  general guidelines are followed
  Most important features of the Mirror library that are currently
  implemented include:
     * Namespace-name inspection.
     * Inspection of the whole scope in which a namespace is defined
     * Type-name querying, with the support for typedef-ined typenames
       and typenames of derived types like pointers, references,
       cv-qualified types, arrays, functions and template names. Names
       with or without nested-name-specifiers can be queried.
     * Inspection of the scope in which a type has been defined
     * Uniform and generic inspection of class' base classes.  One can
       inspect traits of the base classes for example their types,
       whether they are inherited virtually or not and the access
       specifier (private, protected, public).
     * Uniform and generic inspection of class' member attributes. At
       compile-time the count of class' attributes and their types,
       storage class specifiers (static, mutable) and some other traits
       can be queried. At run-time one can uniformly query the names
       and/or values (when given an instance of the reflected class) of
       the member attributes and sequentially execute a custom functor
       on every attribute of a class.
     * Traversals of a class' (or generally type's) structure with user
       defined visitors, which are optionally working on an provided
       instance of the type or just on it's structure without any
       run-time data. These visitors are guided by Mirror through the
       structure of the class and optionally provided with contextual
       information about the current position in the traversal.
  I'm hoping to have it review ready in the next few months.
Interval Template Library
-------------------------
:Author: Joachim Faulhaber
:Description:
  The Interval Template Library (Itl) provides intervals
  and two kinds of interval containers: Interval_sets and
  interval_maps. Interval_sets and maps can be used just
  as sets or maps of elements. Yet they are much more
  space and time efficient when the elements occur in
  contiguous chunks: intervals. This is obviously the case
  in many problem domains, particularly in fields that deal
  with problems related to date and time.
  Interval containers allow for intersection with interval_sets
  to work with segmentation. For instance you might want
  to intersect an interval container with a grid of months
  and then iterate over those months.
  Finally interval_maps provide aggregation on
  associated values, if added intervals overlap with
  intervals that are stored in the interval_map. This
  feature is called aggregate on overlap. It is shown by
  example:
  ::
    typedef set<string> guests;
    interval_map<time, guests> party;
    guests mary; mary.insert("Mary");
    guests harry; harry.insert("Harry");
    party += make_pair(interval<time>::rightopen(20:00, 22:00),mary);
    party += make_pair(interval<time>::rightopen_(21:00, 23:00),harry);
    // party now contains
    [20:00, 21:00)->{"Mary"}
    [21:00, 22:00)->{"Harry","Mary"} //guest sets aggregated on overlap
    [22:00, 23:00)->{"Harry"}
  As can be seen from the example an interval_map has both
  a decompositional behavior (on the time dimension) as well as
  a accumulative one (on the associated values).
StlConstantTimeSize
-------------------
:Author: Vicente J. Botet Escriba
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=constant_time_size.zip&amp;directory=Containers&amp; 
 >`__
:Description:
  Boost.StlConstantTimeSize Defines a wrapper to the stl container list
  giving the user the chioice for the complexity of the size function:
  linear time, constant time or quasi-constant.  In future versions the
  library could include a similar wrapper to slist.
InterThreads
-------------------
:Author: Vicente J. Botet Escriba
:Download: `Boost Vault <http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&amp;filename=interthreads.zip&amp;directory=Concurrent%20Programming&amp; 
 >`__
:Description:
  Boost.InterThreads extends Boost.Threads adding some features:
     * thread decorator: thread_decorator allows to define
       setup/cleanup functions which will be called only once by
       thread: setup before the thread function and cleanup at thread
       exit.
     * thread specific shared pointer: this is an extension of the
       thread_specific_ptr providing access to this thread specific
       context from other threads. As it is shared the stored pointer
       is a shared_ptr instead of a raw one.
     * thread keep alive mechanism: this mechanism allows to detect
       threads that do not prove that they are alive by calling to the
       keep_alive_point regularly. When a thread is declared dead a
       user provided function is called, which by default will abort
       the program.
     * thread tuple: defines a thread groupe where the number of
       threads is know statically and the threads are created at
       construction time.
     * set_once: a synchonizer that allows to set a variable only once,
       notifying to the variable value to whatever is waiting for that.
     * thread_tuple_once: an extension of the boost::thread_tuple which
       allows to join the thread finishing the first, using for that
       the set_once synchronizer.
     * thread_group_once: an extension of the boost::thread_group which
       allows to join the thread finishing the first, using for that
       the set_once synchronizer.
  (thread_decorator and thread_specific_shared_ptr) are based on the
  original implementation of threadalert written by Roland Schwarz.
  Boost.InterThreads extends Boost.Threads adding thread setup/cleanup
  decorator, thread specific shared pointer, thread keep alive
  mechanism and thread tuples.