Re: [boost] FORMAL review of "Output Formatters" - votes needed

From: John Torjo (john.lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-09-25 05:09:46

Reece Dunn wrote:

> John Torjo wrote:
> 
>> Dear boosters,
>>
>> There's been quite a hot debate about "Output Formatters" library.
>>
>> Reece has provided some input facilies in this library as well.
>> This has drawn people to either sides: some don't want these input 
>> facilities, while others do.
>>
>> To conclude, I would like to ask you to vote:
>> - "Yes" - in favor of Input facilities
>> - "No"  - don't want Input facilities.
>>
>>
>> My personal vote is "No".
>> Please share your own.
> 
> 
> I don't know if I am allowed to vote here, but I would like to point out 
> a few things:
> 
> [1] The library provides operator << (output) for STL containers. Thus, 
> you can do:
> 
>    ss << vec;
> 
> If input facilities were not provided, you couldn't do:
> 
>    ss >> vec; // oops! operator >> not defined for std::vector<...>
> 
> NOTE: You would then need to implement these facilities using 
> Boost.Spirit which will add a dependency on that library.
> 
> [2] The direct result of not supporting [1] is that you cannot utilize 
> Roland Richter's usage:
> 
>    std::list<char> cl = lexical_cast< std::list<char> >( "[ a, b, c ]" );
> 
> [3] Input and output operations are symmetric operations. Why provide 
> output for std::complex if you don't provide input?
> 

When they're symmetric, I can use [serialize].
The thing is that when I want pretty output, I want your library. When I 
do pretty output, I really don't expect to read it back.

For a lot of cases when I do pretty output, there is no safe way to read 
it back.

Best,
John

-- 
John Torjo
-- john_at_[hidden]
Contributing editor, C/C++ Users Journal
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