[boost] Re: Re: VC7 and wchar_t in Boost

From: Edward Diener (eddielee_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-10-24 12:38:34

"Beman Dawes" <bdawes_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:4.3.2.7.2.20021023213747.00c50c30_at_mailhost.esva.net...
> At 06:46 AM 10/22/02, John Maddock wrote:
>  >
>  >> Is the official Boost position on this, if there is one, to build such
>  >> libraries without the /Zc:wchar_t switch and tell the end user that he
>  >must
>  >> do the same if he wants to use the Boost library ?
>  >
>  >There is no official position, but it seems to reasonable to me, that
> boost
>  >libraries should be built using the toolsets default options, and if the
>  >user want something different then they should have to rebuild their
>  >libraries.  Basically there is a limit to how many library variants we
> want
>  >built by default (and how many user will tolerate) - there are already 6
>  >for VC6/7, IMO that's enough.
>
> The default options might be preferred where an option is truly optional.
>
> But for options which increase standards conformance, I think we should
> turn the option on. Particularly if Boost libraries fail without the
> option. That isn't an option in my mind, its a requirement:-)

The current situation for Regex++ for VC7 is to use the default compiler
option which supports backward compatibility with VC6 and the non-standard
wchar_t, as a typedef, which MS has previously supported. However, it
appears the IDE always sets up default projects in the same way to support
backward compatibility and not, as I had thought, to support C++ wchar_t in
some situations. So essentially VC7 now adds the ability to support C++
wchar_t but defaults to the previous VC6 situation.