[boost] Re: [filesystem] Major changes before standardization

From: Edward Diener (eddielee_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-11-12 18:06:57

Beman Dawes wrote:
> At 08:36 PM 11/11/2004, Peter Dimov wrote:
>
>  >Anything besides path/wpath is even less useful than basic_string
>  that >isn't string or wstring, amazing as this may be, and we all
>  know how >popular basic_string is.
>
> The issue isn't the popularity of basic_string. As long as there are
> even a few users who depend on basic_strings other than string and
> wstring, the committee will probably want to support it.
>
> Also, remember that basic_string<char16_t> and basic_string<char32_t>
> may well be mandated in the fairly close future.

I agree and have also attempted to make this point before, particularly in
comp.std.c++. It is certainly possible that other native character types
will be added to C++ in the future. Perhaps also some sort of unicode
character encoding as has been discussed in another thread. Surely it must
be easier to use the C++ template to create strings using a new character
type than to tack on more functionality to a generalized string class that
must accomodate all future character types.