[boost] [integer] Promotion of endian library code from vault

From: Neil Mayhew (neil_mayhew_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-05-22 10:53:29

On 2006-07-22 12:21:01, Beman Dawes wrote:
> [boost] [integer] endian-0.6 posted w/ names changed
> endian-0.6.zip has been posted in the integer directory of the file 
> vault at http://boost-consulting.com/vault/

This code is still in the vault, but I'd like to see it in the main part 
of boost. What needs to be done to make this happen?

The endian library is exactly what I've been looking for, and I would 
really like to use it in my work, but I can't justify that to my 
colleagues if it's not an official part of boost. I would hate to become 
yet another person that reinvents this particular wheel. However, I 
notice there was a lot of discussion 
<http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/07/108125.php> about PODs vs 
constructors, because of unions, so maybe not enough consensus was 
reached? There were some interesting proposals but no agreed-upon 
solution. In which case, I suspect that people will need to copy the 
code and each hack it to suit their own purposes, which is not what 
boost is all about.

I have two use cases from my own work: TrueType fonts, and Mac HFS+ file 
systems. Both of these are big-endian file formats that need to be read 
into memory and processed, so (FWIW) I would support the POD approach. 
Currently, I can't use the code as-is because of the need to use the 
types in unions.

References:

http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2000/03/2495.php
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/05/105621.php
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/06/105695.php
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/06/105779.php
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/06/105968.php
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/06/106655.php
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/07/108125.php
http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/07/108202.php

--Neil