[boost] Re: boost::format on gcc2.96?

From: Samuel Krempp (krempp_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-08-20 14:29:06

Gavin Doughtie a écrit :

> I've been struggling to get boost::format to work on gcc 2.96 and 
> having some awful compile issues. I can't use STL port since I need to 
> link with libraries built against the standard GCC stl. Is there a 
> compatibility flag or something I can set to make this work? A 
> specific error dump is below.
>
> Apologies in advance for the direct email. What is the appropriate 
> list/group for questions like this in the future?

Direct email is not a problem for me (as long as I dont recevive too 
many of them in a day :), I dont know about Dave.
The best place to continue discussion on the subject of adding 
compatibility for gcc < 3.0 to format is the boost developper list, 
boost_at_lists.boost.org.

First, I'd like to know : is there absolutely no way you could upgrade 
to more recent gcc-3.x ?  I think the standard-conformance of g++ got so 
much better with the 3.x versions, that any C++ programmer would have to 
consider upgrading, sooner or later. I dont see supporting gcc-2.95  as 
a very important point, now that so many compilers become -at last- 
close enough to the C++ standard, to require much much less time spent 
in writing worthless workarounds.

The C++ standard library shipped with gcc-2.95 (see P.S.) has many 
issues, and making format to compile with it would require too many 
workarounds (eg., almost each template function signature would have to 
be modified..)  to be implemented as  #ifdef's in the main header files.
Though, I could modify the set of headers to work specifically with 
gcc-2.95, but even then I think adding those files to boost repository 
might bring more clutter than worth.
(also, to compile with gcc-2.95, I'd have to remove locale support, as 
well as wchar suppport, rather than spending hours finding how to have 
them work -if at all possible- with this gcc's library). So this could 
be a possible solution if this is fine for your needs, and you really, 
really can't switch to g++-3.x.

Best regards,
-- 
Samuel
PS : I  talk about gcc-2.95 rather than 2.96 as I dont have such a 
compiler available on my system.  I believe gcc-2.96 is a redhat-shipped 
version of gcc (which gcc's team made clear they do not support, as they 
never released it), roughly similar to the gcc-2.95,which I know about, 
and which I have access to on my debian system. I think it is safe to 
assume the issues with gcc-2.96 are the same with the ones I observed 
with gcc-2.95