Re: [boost] Interest in dimension/unit-checking library?

From: Andy Little (andy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-11-21 11:17:39

"Jeff Garland"  wrote

> In the particular case of units, I'll just warn you that there is a trail of
> broken dreams.  There is clearly interest in such a library, but several
> authors have started and then abandoned.  You'll want to have a look thru the
> mailing lists at some of the discussions we've had over the last 5 years or
> so.  I think Andy Little has come the closest to an actual submission.  You
> can find his library at:
>
> http://www.servocomm.freeserve.co.uk/Cpp/physical_quantity/index.html

I hope that  boost will get its units library eventually . It just needs a lot
more work than it appears to!
FWIW I have managed to spend some time on creating a boost version of pqs
library. It is progress but not complete. This has been greatly helped by
Cromwell Enages work on the mpl::math::rational (Thanks Cromwell), which pqs
library ( and I think any boost units library) depends on. I presume that Matt
Calabrese is also working on his submission, which takes a radically different
approach from the sound of it. FWIW I have opted not to use mpl::double for the
boost::pqs library yet just because it makes more work( and will increase
compile times a lot I think), however I hope that the new version of the library
will be more modular that the old one which will make incorporating mpl::double
easier later on. The modularity extends to forming the dimensional analysis part
of the library in terms of mpl sequence (currently tested with mpl::vector only)
to facilitate reuse with non SI unit systems.( The old library has this facility
but was done outside mpl, which it seems makes it obscure).

No guarantees  that I'll finish this soon, but having settled on Cromwells
rational at last, at least I seem to have got over the worst part of the
conversion to a boost library.

Perhaps I should put what I have so far in the boost sandbox. How do I go about
applying for write permission?
Or is there somewhere else I should put it?
BTW I assume that cvs is still in use rather than subversion?

On holiday till early December... bye for now.

regards
Andy Little