Re: [boost] Stream input and output of NaN and infinity

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-05-17 11:43:24

Paul A Bristow wrote:

>> Please can you tell me if you think my pragmatic proposal (now in
>> version 2) meets these limited objectives.

A valient effort aimed to deal with a real problem in most (if not all)
stream i/o implementations.

However, trying to get everyone in sync with this and having the
changes ripple through to compilers, libraries, etc will/would take
years.

I think that efforts would be more fruitful if directed to fixing
the problem given the tools we currently have.

I would like to see a couple of sets of num_put/num_get facets
which implement the following:

a) mapping of Nan's to some agreed upon strings such as you
use in your proposal.

b) trapping of Nan's on output.

When users created the a stream, they could do one of the following

a) nothing - use the current setup
b) use the "standardized mapping facets"
c) use the "trapping facets"

This would permit one to choose the best behavior for the
current application.

It's not that I'm against making a submission to the standard, I just
don't think that a "standard" solution is going to really address the
problem - its not one size fits all.

Robert Ramey