Re: [boost] Report from Berlin C++ Standards Committee meeting

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.