[boost] Re: MSVC++ 6.0 compiler errors with 1.30.0 (mostlylexical_cast.hpp)

From: Kevlin Henney (kevlin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-03-22 15:12:25

In article <b5ie28$oic$1_at_[hidden]>, Gennadiy Rozental
<gennadiy.rozental_at_[hidden]> writes
>
>Sorry to interfere to this fine discussion, but from my standpoint
>introduction of std::type_info into lexical_cast is a big problem. I usually
>compile my program with noRTTI flag effectively making any program using new
>lexical cast fail to link.. 

OK, this is a new twist. Not one that can be addressed out of the box,
however: there is no config feature test that addresses this since, as
the config docs state, there is no accommodation for disabling now
commonly supported C++ features such as RTTI.

>Would you want to supply type information you
>may do it like this:
>
>struct bad_lexical_cast {
>    ...
>    virtual char const* src() = 0;
>    virtual char const* trg() = 0;
>};

This would not be a massive improvement since the types would be, once
again, expressed as text rather than as program entities, ie type_info
objects.

>Now, question remains how user will customize ReflectionPolicy. I see at
>least 2 ways:
>1. Add third template parameter to the lexical_cast with default value
>2. Use global trait (in this case you may return customizable type from src,
>trg functions instead of char const*)

Neither of these sounds particularly attractive, I'm afraid, and would
still require config-level feature support.

>I could not afford to include <typeinfo> into my source and never do. And I
>do not think lexical cast should force me.

If you can make a case for introducing a standard config feature test
for RTTI this may be something we could consider using in lexical_cast.
Otherwise, apologies for the inconvenience :-(

Kevlin
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