Re: [boost] [BGL] container_gen (was Re: [tree] reviving the tree library)

Subject: Re: [boost] [BGL] container_gen (was Re: [tree] reviving the tree library)
From: Gordon Woodhull (gordon_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-05-10 01:24:28

On May 9, 2011, at 10:36 AM, Cromwell Enage wrote:
> The idea behind container_gen is indeed to allow users to drop in containers of their choosing by providing their own specializations and selectors.  In turn, your node class template needs only to take in the selector type as an additional template parameter.
> 
> One current limitation that may be important to you is the inability to supply custom allocators as well.  I saw in the sandbox that the BGL authors were planning to provide selector templates parameterized by allocator type.  I'm wondering how that work is progressing.

This appears to be documented at 
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_39_0/libs/graph/doc/using_adjacency_list.html#sec:custom-storage

At least, they say how to do it, but one would need to double the number of tags and container_gen specializations in order to fully support allocators this way, along with all the other traits.  What are you referring to in the sandbox?

> At any rate, to the BGL authors: I find container_gen to be a useful utility metafunction outside its current home.  Would anyone else like to see it become a first-class Boost citizen?

Yes, please.  I need container_gen for the proposed Fusion.Graph.  (basic prototype in sandbox/metagraph/fusion_graph).

You are proposing to split it out into its own header, right?  Should it go into Utility?  Or maybe it is Graphy enough to stay where it is.  Will you be using parallel_edge_traits and is_random_access as well?  

I guess container_gen corresponds to/belongs with potentially a whole library of container traits.  I see that a few container traits libraries have been proposed in the past (one turned into Range).  It's another library for library authors.

I need to generalize container_gen to pretend that a pointer or smart pointer, optional or plain containment are simple sorts of containers, where the size is 0 or 1.  I suppose this is just a matter of writing a bunch of adaptors, and using container_gen as-is.

Cheering you on with the Tree stuff,
Cheers,
Gordon