Re: [boost] String formatting library: interest?

From: Giovanni Bajo (giovannibajo_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-05-13 07:59:03

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mattias Flodin" <flodin_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: [boost] String formatting library: interest?

> On Mon, May 13, 2002 at 01:29:59PM +0200, Giovanni Bajo wrote:
> > > I may be missing something here, but I thought a format library has
> > > been in the makings for some time now. What is the difference between
> > > this proposal and the library already in progress?
> >
> > I didn't know there was one. Is there a document/link about it?

> Here it is.
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boost/files/format2/
> According to the wiki, Samuel Krempp is the one working on it

Thanks for the link.

- As I have already said, I hate the abuse of operators for anything that's
not strictly related with their common usage (with builtin types). operator%
to substitute an argument is a heresy for me, but YMMV. Also, it doesn't
allow formatting options to be specified at parameter-usage time.

- It doesn't substitute/enhance std::string, but it acts as an external
library. You can either feed the result of format() to a stream, or use the
member .str() to get the string.

- It supports advanced formatting by the means of the old-style printf fmt
specifier, which is good (as we already discussed in another post).

- It appears to be complete :)

The first two points are enough for me to stick with my own library. What I
want is something that integrates seamlessly with std::string and also I
don't want to be forced to use printf-style specified just to align my text,
let alone operator% itself.
Let me know your opinions too, I'm not going to work on my idea if you find
that this library already meets your needs.

Giovanni Bajo