Re: [boost] [Review] Fixed Strings review period extended

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-01-30 03:44:27

Andy Little wrote:
>A Fixed Strings library but this one? . What interests me is that  the
>fixed_string library is way ahead as the top download in the Vault download
>list, but few reviewers have resulted.  I feel the mystery can be explained
>by the reviews so far. looking through them we have all said pretty much 
>the
>same thing. Surprise
>that there is no overflow policy.

I intend to fix this for the next review :).

>Concern at the lack of detail in the
>documentation and the way the documentation and the class itself are laid 
>out.

I hope to improve the documentation so that users can follow it better.

>IOW as currently implemented fixed_string isnt delivering what it seems to
>promise. I hope Reece takes this in his stride by the way . I would guess 
>that
>has to be the
>reason why so many downloads have resulted in so little response. It must 
>be
>worth analysing that lack of response as a first step in revisiting the 
>design.

I can only fix issues that are being raised.

That said, I intend to move the basic_string_impl class out of the detail 
namespace as this is more useful in other contexts. That class is based on 
the flex_string class written by Andrei Alexandrescu. However, this class - 
like the basic_string class - is *way* too large.

I have experimented with splitting this class into several smaller ones 
based on the grouping in the standard documentation (iterators, capacity, 
etc.) so you can combine them. This way, it will be like the iterator 
classes. These have had some limited success and I intend on working on this 
after fixing the issues raised in the review.

With this change, I intend to move the fixed_string class into boost/string 
so that other string classes like const_string can be placed there as well.

- Reece