Re: Any Interest in a port of ZLib to C++?

From: Andrzej Krzemienski (akrzemi1_at_[hidden])
Date: 2021-03-24 06:12:04

wt., 23 mar 2021 o 06:16 Vinnie Falco via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
napisał(a):

> Beast currently has its own port of ZLib to C++:
>
> <https://github.com/boostorg/beast/tree/develop/include/boost/beast/zlib>
>
> Is there any interest in having this proposed as its own separate
> Boost library (with a separate review, which has nothing to do with
> Beast)? The differences would be as follows:
>
> * Ported to use C++11 idioms
> * Same header-only / compiled source model as Boost.JSON
> * Better documentation and clear API
> * Improved tests
>
> Programs which use this C++ port of ZLib would get their zlib
> dependency from Boost instead of the official zlib distribution. And
> they can integrate it into their projects the same way that Boost
> libraries are integrated. Or they can include <boost/zlib/src.hpp> in
> any one translation unit (like JSON).
>

In my work we currently use ZLib. If at the point of making a decision
which library to use there was an option to choose the Boost version, we
would definitely go for it. For me, a library under Boost is like a "Boost
certificate that guarantees certain things:
* The documentation will not be just a list of classes and functions, but
will also tell me the limits of the library, how I am supposed to use it,
and how not to use it; what problems it solves, and what problems are
beyond its scope; how it will interact with other libraries.
* I know that the design has included (and documented) things like
exception safety and thread safety. (There are good libraries in the wild
that never mention if it is safe to call them from two threads).

Of course, if a library for compression is extracted from Beast and added
as a distinct library in Boost, I would expect that it comes with an
interface for compression libraries that makes sense for other compression
algorithm implementations.

Regards,
&rzej;

> The motivation for this is twofold:
>
> * Provide an easier way for users to access ZLib's functionality
> * To use this in some new libraries that I'm going to propose
>
> --
> Regards,
> Vinnie
>
> Follow me on GitHub: https://github.com/vinniefalco
>
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