Re: [boost] C++17 detection

Subject: Re: [boost] C++17 detection
From: Gavin Lambert (gavinl_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-09-13 23:01:24

On 12/09/2017 12:15, Stephan T. Lavavej wrote:
> [Gavin Lambert]
>> __cplusplus gives you the claimed conformance level of the compiler,
>> which is usually (though not necessarily) in agreement with the STL.
>> But that doesn't do you a lot of good as it's a big catch-all
>> (and at least in the case of MSVC lags behind the actual individual feature support).
> 
> That's intentional. If we were to update __cplusplus's value before 
> completing C++11 (not to mention C++14/17), the Internet would riot.
I know it's intentional; that wasn't my point.  It wasn't intended as a 
disparagement, just a statement of fact.

Although having said that, while I can understand the desire to not 
update it until the standard is fully implemented, it does seem a bit 
peculiar to do that -- and inconsistent with what GCC/Clang do (they 
just indicate which version is requested on the command line), so I 
don't know why you'd get a riot for doing the same as them.  In fact I 
would think that would be a better thing to do, to improve consistency 
between compilers.