[boost] Re: Output Formatters (was I/O Formatting Manipulators)

From: Jonathan Turkanis (technews_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-12-08 03:02:59

Hi Reece,

I've looked at your library in detail now, except for the State Outputters.
Good work!

I'll have more comments later. But first:

1. Surprisingly, partial template specialization is not necessary. See
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boost/files/outfmt_no_pts.zip for a version
with no partial spec. A good deal of the library now works on VC6. As a side
effect, output deduction now works fully on borland 5.6.4. (I don't know
about 5.5.1.) I've also tested it on Intel 7.1.

The headers type_deducer.hpp and output_deducer.hpp had to be mostly
rewritten; otherwise, I made some small changes to format_traits and
pair_traits. A detailed list of changes is included with the zip.

Because boost::remove_bounds requires partial spec, array deduction does not
work properly on VC6. There are apparently workarounds for common array
types in boost-sandbox\boost\string_algo\detail, which you might wan't to
look at.

2. My gut feeling tells me that the library can be simplified a bit. I'm
particularly worried about the large number of object generators. Perhaps a
more extensive tutorial would clear up some of my doubts. With your
permission, I'd like to hack on the code a bit to see if I can make it a
little simpler, without losing functionality.

First, please let me know what you think of my changes.

Jonathan

P.S.  Some of my modifications may have broken the library for GCC -- let me
know and I'll try to fix it.