Re: [boost] hex/unhex()?

Subject: Re: [boost] hex/unhex()?
From: Marshall Clow (mclow.lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-06-03 13:20:20

On Jun 3, 2012, at 4:35 AM, Olaf van der Spek wrote:

> On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 7:39 AM, Marshall Clow <mclow.lists_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>>> What if input type is like range<char*> (and you'd like output type to
>>> be std::string)?
>>> I think output type and input type shouldn't be required to be equal.
>> 
>> They don't have to be equal.
>>        std::string s;
>>        hex ( <range>, std::back_inserter (s));
> 
> But that's not as convenient as the normal function which returns the string.

Indeed.

My goal is not to provide every possible convenience function; the goal is to provide a functionality that can be used in a wide variety of circumstances.
If you have a need for such a function, I am confident that you can write it.

> It's also missing reserve().

reserve is not appropriate in this case; since in general, the size of the input range cannot be determined easily.
For a null terminated string, you would have to traverse the input twice; once to determine the length, and the other to do the conversion.
That might be advantageous (or not); but consider in the case where the input range is a pair of input iterators.

> Should hex output be upper case or lower case? c++0x suggests lower case. :p

MySQL (and inertia) suggest upper case; note that unhex will accept both.

-- Marshall

Marshall Clow     Idio Software   <mailto:mclow.lists_at_[hidden]>

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