Re: [boost] 3-state boolean type

From: Douglas Gregor (gregod_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-08-02 09:40:59

On Friday 02 August 2002 10:15 am, Rob Stewart wrote:
> I agree with the sentiments regarding the name.  Of those suggested thus
> far, I like tristate.

The reason I don't like 'tristate' is that it doesn't convey anything about 
what the 3 states are. I think we have to have 'bool' in the name somewhere 
to make it obvious that true and false are two of the states and that the 
type acts like a boolean.

> I don't think such a simple type should be overly complicated with support
> for various numbers of states unless it can be managed by a template and
> typedef approach.  If a tristate version of such a template uses
> {true,false,unknown}, while a quadstate version uses
> {true,false,maybe_true,maybe_false}, etc. -- that is, each variation can
> have its own names for the values such that they are sensible for the
> number of states -- then it will be sensible.  Without those
> characteristics, it will be too unwieldy.

Agreed. 

        Doug