Re: [boost] program_options lib patch

From: François Dumont (francois.cppdevs_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-01-13 12:19:55

    I build the boost (latest CVS) ) using MSVC6 SP5, STLport 5.0 beta,
February 2003 SDK under Win XP SP2.

    I am using boost to check STLport as I am a contributor to this library.
I setup STLport and boost (stlport.hpp) so that all C symbols are imported
within std but boost do not enfore this injection (BOOST_NO_STDC_NAMESPACE
is undefined). This way I know that STLport do import correctly all C
symbols used by boost. In this case C symbols calls have to be fully
qualified as VC6 has ambiguity trouble as soon as you have a using namespace
std directive.

    I have remarked that the latest boost release do not force C symbols
injection using STLport like it used to do with previous versions. It is
perhaps the way I should build boost even if in this case boost is forced to
define BOOST_NO_STDC_NAMESPACE which is a little bit disappointed on an
STLport point of view as STLport _do_ import C symbols for any compilers
except VC6. Maybe the stlport.hpp config file should check the
_STLP_NO_USING_FOR_GLOBAL_FUNCTIONS STLport macro before defining its own
macro. I have plan to send a patch for this config file in order to use
STLport 5.0, I will think about it at that time.

    I hope this description will help you take your decision.

Bests

Francois Dumont

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Vladimir Prus" <ghost_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
Cc: "François Dumont" <francois.cppdevs_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [boost] program_options lib patch

Hi François,
> According some boost library sources I have checked it looks like there is
> an implicit coding standard rule which is to always use C functions from
> their C++ std namespace import equivalent. Thanks to this, compilers like
> MSVC6 but also Commeau according what I have read in comments, do not give
> compilation errors because of ambiguity. The program_options library do
> not
> apply this rule, here are the patch to fix it. It, of course, use the
> BOOST_NO_STDC_NAMESPACE to force std import when missing.
>
> In cmdline.cpp, this modification made the Commeau workaround irrelevant,
> it has been removed.

I have a couple of general questions about this patch:

1. Why it's necessary. Did you have problems with some compiler? If yes,
what
it was?

2. What compilers did you test your modification with? I recall that
std::tolower vs. tolower thing was hard to get working everywhere, so I'd
rather no touch it unless it's broken somewhere.

- Volodya