[boost] [utility] new auto_buffer class --- RFC

Subject: [boost] [utility] new auto_buffer class --- RFC
From: Thorsten Ottosen (thorsten.ottosen_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-03-01 16:04:56

Dear all,

For a long time I have been missing this utility in my own work, and in 
boost related stuff too. I think there are a number of libraries in 
boost that can benefit from this utility. Libs like boost.format can be 
quite a bit more effective. So can logging libraries. etc.

Basically boost::auto_buffer<T,N> is a C++ version of variable lenght 
array (from C99). It's based on Matthew Wilson's stlsoft::auto_buffer, 
which can be found described in his book "Imperfect C++".

I have changed a few things though:

     // - no swap() and resize() provided
     // - works with allocators from Boost.Interprocess
     // - do not store T[N] on the stack, as this is bad when the
     //   type has a non-trivial default constructor.
     // - handless non-pod types in an exception-safe manner
     // - has a fixed capacity, but a non-fixed size
     // - provides a non-growing (thus inlineable) push_back()

Comments are most welcome.

best regards

-Thorsten