[boost] Re: Regexp code bloat

From: Edward Diener (eddielee_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-10-23 20:27:16

"Andrei Alexandrescu" <andrewalex_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:ap7d3r$s6j$1_at_main.gmane.org...
> > Before you complain about how "bloated" libraries like regex++ and GRETA
> are
> > compared to libs like PCRE, it's important to consider differences in
the
> > feature sets.  GRETA and regex++ are *generic* template libraries that
> work
> > with any bidirectional iterator type, with narrow or wide characters.
> PCRE
> > (as far as I know) only works on char*.
>
> This argument does not hold. We're not in the dark ages of the OO craze
when
> everything inherited something with the code bloat and the vtables and
> everything. I'm so glad those days are behind us, but these days are bad
as
> well, just for different reasons! :o) Too many emperors walking down the
> streets naked, and too many people do their best to act as if that's oh so
> cool. (That doesn't relate to the topic by the way.)

Regex++ is a library. It is a single DLL or LIB file and not just a set of
template header files. That may explain what you believe to be code bloat
somewhat. I realize that using the LIB file should result in the final
module only including the object files needed but many of the object files
contain a large subset of functionality within a generalized source file, so
very possibly even using the static LIB version drags in some extra unneeded
code. Of course using the DLL version means shipping the entire DLL.

> > That said, I think GRETA is about as big as regex++.
>
> The hundreds of KB still put both libraries in the hugely expensive range.
> At 500 KB, it would frankly border on unacceptability for many real
> projects.

Wow ! I always thought 500 KB was pretty small in these days of
multi-megabyte modules and executables and gigabytes of memory and virtual
memory. You must be working on some pretty small projects, Andrei !