[boost] tiny review iostreams library

From: Jan Christiaan van Winkel (jc_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-12 14:23:58

Hello,

I have been asked by Jonathan D. Turkanis to take a look at his
iostreams library that is currently in review for inclusion in Boost.
He asked me because I presented a paper at ACCU in 2003 about adding
a filtering capability to iostreams aloing with a very convenient
notation to sting filters together using the vertical bar (|) as is
done in UNIX.

I had very little time to do a decent review (busy working on the
Netherlands Unix Users Group's conference about system administration
and network engineering - see www.sane.nl it will be great!), but I
think I have a good impression of the structure.

1) The library fills in some (for me) much needed gaps in the
standard iostreams library.  Especially being able to use a
(pre-opened) filedescriptor is important to me (since attach() was
not included in the standard).  
2) The filtering idea I have great feelings about - I wouldn't have
written an article about that kind of thing if I didn't like the idea
;-)  I would like the vertical vbar (akin to UNIX'pipe notiation) were
also available, but I heard that Jonathan has already worked on that.
In general, I think his approach is far, far better, more evolved and
complete that my own try, that was only meant as a proof of concept.

What I would like: a good user-level manual.  The documentation is
filled with quite some standardeze (and rightly so - it should be
exact!).  But users may not see the full strength of the library if
they are not introduced to the library using some user-oriented
documentation.

So, my conclusion:  I hope the submission of the library to boost is
succesfull - the library would be most helpfull.

JC

-- 
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