Re: [boost] Checking interest in to_string functions

Subject: Re: [boost] Checking interest in to_string functions
From: Stewart, Robert (Robert.Stewart_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-09-30 12:54:48

Antony Polukhin wrote:
>
> As was mentioned in `[boost] to_string(v)`
> 1) Functions to_string and to_wstring are part of the upcoming
> C++0x standard. However, there are no functions for char16_t
> and char32_t conversions.
> 2) Some users can't use C++11 in some projects for quite some
> time, but can use boost.
> 3) "to_string(5)" is a lot shorter than
> "lexical_cast<std::string>(5)". Some users would like to use a
> shorter form.
>
> Is there interest in stoi, stoll, stof, to_string, to_wstring,
> to_u16string, stod and other functions for char, wchar_t,
> char16_t and char32_t conversions?
> Shall I add them to lexical_cast library, or as a separate
> conversion library?

I think it is reasonable to capture to_string() as a standard, extrinsic function template that returns a std::string from T.  Each T must supply a specialization that does the right thing, of course, and there would be implementations for built-in types.  This means the mechanism is extensible to UDTs.  Obviously, to_string<T>(T const &) isn't flexible.  It just provides a quick-and-dirty conversion.

I have no idea whether to_wstring(), to_u16string(), etc. would be useful.  I've heard too many conflicting things about which string types work or don't for Unicode, etc., and have no firsthand experience.

stoi(), stoll(), stof(), stod() seem less useful, though providing a portable C++03 implementation wouldn't be bad.  I don't know how those functions in C++11 compare to functions like strtod(), but that one in particular is painful to use correctly because of the error semantics.  I generally wrap such functions behind a function template interface to simplify usage, select the right function for the type being converted, and throw exceptions or return bool on failure.

_____
Rob Stewart                           robert.stewart_at_[hidden]
Software Engineer                     using std::disclaimer;
Dev Tools & Components
Susquehanna International Group, LLP  http://www.sig.com

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