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From: David Abrahams (abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-07-06 22:50:41


call_traits in particular can be used AFAIK to write code that runs on
platforms without partial specialization but runs more efficiently on
platforms with partial specialization. I have asked the author to confirm
this and put it in the documentation, or to deny it... but neither has
occurred so I might be wrong ;)

Anyway, it would be a shame if we made it unusable in this way by adding the
#error directive below.

-Dave

----- Original Message -----
From: "Beman Dawes" <beman_at_[hidden]>

>Note that another compiler and several more test programs have been added

>to
>http://www.boost.org/libs/compiler_status.htm. More of the compiles are
>now succeeding, thanks to the fixes in this release from library
>maintainers.

In private email John Maddock mentioned that call_traits_test.cpp isn't
supposed to compile with compilers (VC++ in particular) which don't support
partial specialization.

Fair enough; we have been saying all along that boost doesn't require
libraries to support broken compilers, particularly if a workaround is
costly or impossible.

What would be helpful to users IMO is if such libraries reported the
problem rather than just letting the compiler produce misleading error
messages. For example,

# ifdef BOOST_NO_TEMPLATE_PARTIAL_SPECIALIZATION
# error Library cannot be used with this non-standard-compliant compiler
# endif

If others think this is worthwhile, I will add it to the guidelines.


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