Re: [boost] Name polution with boost::type_traits

From: Aleksey Gurtovoy (agurtovoy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-08-05 19:19:03

Ivan Godard writes:
> May I suggest that the type_traits identifiers all be placed in a
> boost::type_traits namespace, with one indirect #include file to grandfather
> existing usage?
>
> The added file, say hide_type_traits.hpp, would include all the detail .hpp
> files the way that type_traits.hpp does now. The individual detail files would
> wrap each API declaration in "namespace type_traits{...}". The present
> type_traits.hpp would simply:
>     #include "hide_type_traits.hpp"
>     namespace boost {
>         using namespace type_traits;
>     }
>
> The effect is that current usage will still work if you include type_traits.hpp
> as at present, but those of us who want the type_traits names (bit not the rest
> of boost) in the file namespace can do a "using boost::type_traits;" to achieve
> that.
>
> What prompts this note is a desire to prepare for TR1 while continuing to
> support old compilers. We attempted to say (in a file included when using an
> older compiler):
>     namespace std {
>         #include "boost/type_traits.hpp"
>     }
> so that the boost type_traits identifiers would appear in the std namespace
> under an old compiler just as they would in a compiler that implements TR1.
> However, this blows up because the boost type_traits library transitively
> includes other boost stuff it uses, and that stuff does *not* like to be in std
>  :-)
>
> Of course, we could leave all the identifiers in the boost space and pick them
> out one by one with using statements; that's in fact what we are doing. But
> that means we have to track your library with our using's, a maintenance
> nuisance.

FWIW, if your goal is to prepare your codebase for TR1, you probably
_do_ want to control which parts of Boost.Type Traits go into
'std'/'tr1' on case-by-case basis.

-- 
Aleksey Gurtovoy
MetaCommunications Engineering