Re: [boost] [offtopic] cygwin and wchar

Subject: Re: [boost] [offtopic] cygwin and wchar
From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-08-05 15:27:01

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 12:18 PM, John Maddock <boost.regex_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
>>> Wide character support is currently detected by libstdcpp3.hpp.
>>>
>>> Is that detection not working?
>>
>> I guess not. The filesystem library failed to build on cygwin with
>> wchar-ish errors until I installed gcc4.
>
> I've just investigated this and:
>
> * Boost.Config is defining the correct wide-character defect macros for both
> gcc-3 and gcc-4 on cygwin.
> * Boost.Filesystem either isn't making use of them at all (the v3 code) or
> has outdated workarounds (v2).
>
> I'm attaching a patch for the filesystem v2 code,

Thank you, John! Apparently I never tested the v2 code with cygwin
g++-3. I'm testing now, with your patches. There are still some
snafus, but I should have a fix in plenty of time for the 1.44 final
release.

> but the v3 code Beman will
> have to fix if this is to work on non-wide-character platforms.

V3 requires wide-character support.

>
> BTW gcc 3 & 4 seem to co-exist quite happily on current cygwin, but as the
> default is still gcc-3 I guess we should still try and support
> non-wide-character platforms?

If existing Boost code supports non-wide-character platforms, I guess
we should still provide that support. But any new code could require
wide support IMO.

Thanks!

--Beman