[boost] [optional] Making optional more debugger friendly

From: Jeffrey Faust (jefffaust_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-22 15:19:11

My only complaint about boost::optional is that it is very difficult to  
see values in the debugger.  I brought this up in a discussion at  
BoostCon, and Jeff Garland suggested I submit a patch.

Well, I have a patch.  The change introduces a new private T* m_value and  
protected method update_debug() which sets this variable.  The variable is  
only visible when building debug, and the method is empty in non-debug.   
 From there, I simply call update_debug() in each public method that  
changes the storage.

The final result is that debuggers can see the variable data by looking at  
opt.m_value.  When not set, the value is null.

Any thoughts?

Jeff Faust