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Subject: [Boost-users] [Review] Boost.Convert library, new subversion URL
From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-04-23 10:23:47


This is a reminder that formal review of the Boost.Convert library by
Vladimir Batov starts today, April 23, and is scheduled to last through
May 2.

***************
* Its Purpose *
***************

The library builds on the past boost::lexical_cast experience, then
takes those conversion-related ideas further to suit better today's
applications and programing needs. It still offers simple, minimal
interface, familiar conversion behavior and additionally provides:

* throwing and non-throwing conversion-failure behavior;
* support for the default/fallback value to be returned when
conversion fails;
* two types of the conversion-failure check - basic/simple and
better/safe;
* formatting support based on the standard std::streams and
std::stream-based manipulators (like std::hex, std::scientific, etc.);
* support for different locales;
* support for boost::range-compliant char and wchar_t-based containers;
* no DefaultConstructibility requirement for the Target/Destination type;
* consistent framework to uniformly incorporate any type-to-type
conversions, extensibility and additional room to grow.

With its present support for string-to-type and type-to-string
conversions it is an essential tool for applications making extensive
use of configuration or MS-Windows-Registry-style files or having to
process/prepare considerable amounts of data in, say, XML, etc. More
so, it is easily extendable to accommodate, specialize and uniformly
deploy new user-defined type-to-type conversions.

*******************
* Where to get it *
*******************

Normally you can find Boost.Convert here:

http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=boost-string-convert.zip

However because the boostpro web site is having problems and will likely
be down for the weekend, I have put the library into the Boost sandbox
temporarily, since the Boost sandbox is up. So you can get the library,
using Subversion, from https://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/sandbox/convert.
This is exactly the same as the vault with the files unzipped.

The HTML documentation is part of the distribution and can be found at
libs/convert/index.html in the distribution above.

********************
* Writing a review *
********************

The reviews and all comments should be submitted to the developers list,
and the email should have "[convert] Review" at the beginning of the
subject line to make sure it's not missed.

Please explicitly state in your review whether the library should be
accepted.

The general review checklist:

     - What is your evaluation of the design?
     - What is your evaluation of the implementation?
     - What is your evaluation of the documentation?
     - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the
       library?
     - Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you
       have any problems?
     - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A
       quick reading? In-depth study?
     - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain?

And finally, every review should answer this question:

     - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library?

Be sure to say this explicitly so that your other comments don't
obscure your overall opinion.

Edward Diener,
Review Manager


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