Re: [boost] Help needed in fixing warnings

Subject: Re: [boost] Help needed in fixing warnings
From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-11-08 13:20:00

> Hmmm - at what level are the tests run at?  That is if using msvc at
> warning level 3 and it comes up "clean" but that doesn't happen
> at level 4, it the library "clean".
>
> For gcc - I don't know if there  is a concept of warning level
> or if there is something analogous.  But there certain warnings
> can be suppressed, and there is -weff and -pedantic etc.

Currently I have /W4 for msvc, and /Wall /Wextra -pedantic for gcc listed on 
the wiki page.

That's the starting point.  There are some things that just can't be made 
clean at that level - that's fine - just log the fact on the wiki so folks 
don't waste their time on it (for example, I couldn't find a way to 
zero-initialize an aligned_storage that was portable and that gcc didn't 
complain about: try building type_traits/aligned_storage_test.cpp to see 
what I mean).  Think of those warning levels as an *aspiration* and lets see 
how it goes.

> Exactly what is the hoop we're expected to jump through?

Hopefully no hoops :-)

OK so I haven't looked at many libraries yet (and not serialization I 
admit), but so far in testing mostly my stuff plus Test/Utility/Integer the 
needed fixes look trivial where they're needed at all.

If those flags are just too onerous for some library X, then we can 
reconsider.  Frankly we won't know until we try.  Also the initial emphasis 
should be on those "core" Boost libraries that often get reused by the rest 
of Boost.  "Terminal" libraries that aren't reused within Boost can mostly 
look after themselves.  Not sure which category serialization is in though 
;-)

Regards, John.