Re: [boost] [1.35] System: error_code.cpp #defines macroswithoutchecking if already defined

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-04-04 16:11:27

Mat Marcus:

> Ouch, good point. I guess one has to consider _SECURE_SCL=0 as a
> global setting. Perhaps the boost build system might want to make this
> the default, given the past performance issues of MS checked
> iterators, etc. even in release builds. (I haven't measured the
> performance imapct for vc9 yet, but I did notice that it is not a
> debug-only switch).

I've found _SECURE_SCL less evil than claimed. It does decrease performance, 
but in my experience, it does so in situations where the code is already 
suboptimal (repeated calls to vector<>::operator[] and use of 
vector<T>::iterator instead of T*). On the plus side, it does catch bugs.

On balance, I don't believe that we should override the default, although we 
probably should provide a way for the user to set it to 0 when building 
Boost.