Re: Boost.URL: Something Wicked This Way Comes!

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2021-10-14 18:03:59

On 10/13/21 7:09 AM, Phil Endecott via Boost wrote:
> Hi Vinnie,
> 
> Vinnie Falco wrote:
>> Well, I was on a pause but I picked Boost.URL back up and whipped it
>> into shape.
> 
> Thanks for posting that. Assorted comments follow.
> 
> Back in 2005-ish I decided to write a URL parser based on the RFC BNF
> using Boost.Spirit. At that time the most recent RFCs were RFC2616
> (1999) and RFC2396 (1998). I did a fairly direct translation of the
> BNF to Spirit and ... it didn't work. It turned out that the BNF in
> the RFCs was wrong, and had been for 6 years at that point. So I
> advise that you are careful about directly using the RFC BNF.
...

Too me, all this argues for the usage of boost spirit as a url parser. 
Maintenance, Verification, etc.  Of a protocol with the problems you 
mention is much easier when the specification of the syntax is separated 
from the code which does the parsing.

Before one says "performance" don't bother - even if it were true in 
this case - which I actually doubt.

> Anyway that's enough ramblings for now....
> 
> 
> Regards, Phil.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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