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From: Yuval Ronen (ronen_yuval_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-04-10 16:43:47


Stefan Slapeta wrote:
> Maxim Yegorushkin wrote:
>
>> In the real world practicality beats purity. The fact is people do not
>> use boost::lexical_cast because of the aforementioned problems.
>
> I second this! boost::lexical_cast in its current form/implementation is
> usable in hardly any real project situation because of many downsides.
>
> The only thing what is nice about this utility at the moment actually is
> its pretty interface, which wouldn't be so pretty if it handled all the
> requirements if should IMO. Those issues araised again and again on the
> boost list, but nobody felt ever responsible even to comment them in a
> sufficient way, some people always referring to the 'nice interface'
> which should never be touched in any way.
>
> I don't remember all the issues people complained about in many threads,
> I remember some of them which are really crucial and need to be dealt
> with:
>
> - performance, performance, performance
> - error handling
> - controlling the conversions via facets
>
> There may be some others and maybe we should put up a complete list. I'm
> afraid, if lexical_cast is standardized as is, people will always have
> to go back to C library functions to do their conversions. I really
> can't imagine that we are the only ones who have major ressentiments
> agains lexical_cast in its current form!

FWIW, I completely agree.


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