August 2008 - Boost-users - lists.boost.org

Unattended regression tests are blocked by Windows Dialog
by Olav Kindt 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

Hi all, I have searched through some of the previous postings on this list, but have not been able to find the solution - so I'll try here. I have a test case that (due to an error of course) tries to run code like this: class MyObject { public: virtual void f() {}; }; void MyFailingTestCase() { MyObject * a = NULL; a->f(); } When running these tests in release mode - the whole process is stopped by a windows dialog letting be know that there was a system error (Access Violation) and asks the user to click OK/Debug. I have also tried to pass the --catch_system_errors=yes, but that did not help I am running 1_33_1 version of the library. (libboost_unit_test_framework-vc80-mt-1_33_1.lib) Does anybody know a way around this problem? Olav

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Re: [Boost-users] Unattended regression tests are blocked byWindowsDialog
by Olav Kindt 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

>>> I have a test case that (due to an error of course) tries to run code >>> like this: >>> >[snip] >>> >>> void MyFailingTestCase() >>> { >>> MyObject * a = NULL; >>> >>> a->f(); >>> } >>> >>> When running these tests in release mode - the whole process is >>> stopped by a windows dialog letting be know that there was a system >>> error (Access Violation) and asks the user to click OK/Debug. >>> >>> I have also tried to pass the --catch_system_errors=yes, but that did >>> not help >>> >>> I am running 1_33_1 version of the library. >>> (libboost_unit_test_framework-vc80-mt-1_33_1.lib) >>> >>> Does anybody know a way around this problem? >> >> The only reasonable solution is to fix the test. According >> to standard C++ the expression "a->f()" using an a with >> a null pointer value causes undefined behaviour. >> Why don't you use a valid argument? Possible examples are: > >I believe the above is just an example. Under Windows, the dereferencing of >the null pointer leads to an access violation which can be handled via SEH >(Structured Exception Handling). MSVC provides a way to translate strutured >exceptions to C++ exceptions, which Boost.Test is supposed to use. >Regards, >Johan If I understand you (and the documentation) correctly - then the Boost.Test framework should have caught this (Structured Exception), and just reported the test as failed. Does this mean that the framework is broken (I'm using 1.33) Does anyone else have any experience with this - will an upgrade to 1.35 help? Olav

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[boost-users][thread] upgrading lock
by Igor R 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

Hello, This's rather basic question, but I couldn't find any example in the docs. typedef boost::shared_lock<boost::shared_mutex> shared_lock; shared_mutex mutex_; /// { shared_lock lock(mutex_); // reading locked data... // here I want to midify the data, how can I upgrade the lock to be exclusive? } Thank you in advance.

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general question on sentry in streams
by Ovanes Markarian 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

Hello all, this is probably a wrong place to write this post, but I hope to receive your thoughts anyway. Writing to moderated c++ group might open my email address to spammers, so I decided to write my post here. One of my collegues told me once that C++ streams are slower then Java. We did some trials (on a Win32 platform with Visual C++ 7.1) and he was able to prove this. Today when I read the standard on output steams I came accross the point, that most all stream functions must construct the nested sentry type. I suddenly remembered the article written by Nathan Myers on locales available at: http://www.cantrip.org/locale.html There he states, that in sentry a locking might be made in a multi-threaded environment. I looked in the implemenation of my STL distribution (which by default bundled with VC++ 7.1) and here we go. sentry locks in ctor and unlocks in dtor. So writing a character by character or integer by integer will produce the whole bunch of lock/unlock sequences, since standard states (in §27.6.2.5.4) that every call to operator << has to create sentry object instance and that explains to me why the std streams (at least on Windows are much slower as on Java). Would be great to hear your thoughts... Regards, Ovanes

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1.36.0 && issue tracking
by Tim St. Clair 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

Folks - I was wondering what method is used to submit bugs which we find, other then spamming the list. I found quite a few in 1.35.0 and I'm hoping 1.36.0 fixes a lot of those issues. However if I find something, how/where can I submit that info. Is there a bugzilla server somewhere which people actually use? -- Regards, Timothy St. Clair [timothysc(a)gmail.com]

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Re: [Boost-users] boost::math::tools and boost::distributions
by Jesse Perla 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

> > >Docs here: > > > http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/libs/math/doc/sf_and_dist/html/math_to… > > > >Note that these are considered "experimental" in the sense that their > >interfaces haven't been reviewed for formal inclusion in Boost. They are > >all rigorously tested though as they're fundamental to the implementation > of > >the rest of the library. So... please do use them, and if you find any > >interface SNAFU's that can be improved let us know! BTW the most likely > >reason for the interfaces to change is to facilitate improvements to their > >implementation and especially their efficiency. > > > >HTH, John. (sorry John, I sent my last email before getting the digest) Perfect. Since a snapshot of the interfaces exists for 1.35, then a port over to newer versions of boost is reasonable. Hopefully we can turn this into a top level project that does the baseline optimization/root finding people need before shopping for really specific tools/algorithms. -------- A couple of other questions on this beautiful distributions library - which I see as a great starting point for a lot of operations treating them as measures: * Is there any planned or existing support in the library for multi-dimensional distributions? In particular, bivariate norms with a covariance matrix passed in? Will the library design and notation support these sorts of extensions without too many problems? * Is there any way in the current library to pass in a user created discrete valued probability measure and have it as a "distribution" here? If not, I think I may write it, but as I am not a very good library programmer I would love to exploit any other work out there. I would need this to work for at least 1 and 2 dimension measures. * If we were to use a function to bundle a discrete valued function, is there a nice class/pattern out there that already combines the x-values and y-values into a single class? (I also want this later for implementing different interpolation algorithms returning functors after passing in a discrete function in the constructor). * Then I would write a specialization of this (2nd and higher dimension) for a markov measure. * Then, I want to write a general operator for unconditional expectation passing in a function object, and over a generic distribution as a measure from this library (though I will use it for the discrete measures to begin with). Specializing for different types of distributions, this could use exact analytical calculations, quadrature, or use monte-carlo methods. * Last, I want to write a conditional expectation operator that takes in a function object mapping reals^2 to reals, a distribution (would have to be 2 dimensional), the conditional (which would be a real for now, but could be generic), and what dimension the condition applies to. * Eventually, we may be able to tie together this operator with boost::lambda and boost::bind and we could up with a very elegant way to write out functions that involve conditional expectations. It may not have the performance of hand-tweaked fortran loops, but it should be a good enough place to start and infinitely preferable to matlab. The main use case I have for this is to implement easy/flexible notation for conditional distribution functions when writing out bellman equations for dynamic programming in economics. Most cases of this involve two dimensional markov measures (often approximated by Tauchen's algorithm from ARMA processes) If anyone is interested in this topic, has ideas, wants to work jointly, or plans to tell me that I am insane, please email me. My main fear is that I am a library user with a pretty good ability to think in generics, but with absolutely no chance of ever understanding what all of the crazy non-algorithmic code in these libraries does or writing it myself. -Jesse

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Building boost with xml support (graph) and icu support (regex)
by Sean Farrow 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

Hi: How can I build boost with xml support in boost::graph, and icu support in Regex. What version of other libraries do I need? Cheers Sean. __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3352 (20080813) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com

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Re: [Boost-users] boost::math::tools ?
by Jesse Perla 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

> >You can google, e.g. > http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/libs/math/doc/sf_and_dist/html/math_to…>backgrounders/remez.html<http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/libs/math/doc/sf_and_dist/html/math_to…> > >Regards, >Olaf Thanks, Since I found these in the sandbox, I was worried that these were partially completed components that snuck into the build. So here are a few documentation organization suggestions that might clear up confusion: * If we follow the documentation down from the top level on boost, these were hard to find. For example, on the main math page: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/libs/math/doc/html/index.html you need to go to the "Special Functions" section, which is named (properly) for all of the arctan, etc. and you wouldn't think it would have basic optimization/root finding/polynomials. The Special Functions section does link to the "Math Toolkit" which makes sense as a master name. * Perhaps the easiest solution would be to have another line in the "libraries" section on http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_35_0/libs/math/doc/html/index.html that mentions basic root finding/optimization and links to this same page But now that I see these pages say that these are in testing/development, I think my main question still stands: Are these (relatively) stable and usable or are they still at a pretty low level of completion? -Jesse

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Downloading boost 1.36
by Sean Farrow 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

Hi: Has boost 1.36 been pushed yet. If yes where is the download link? Cheers Sean. __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 3351 (20080813) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com

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[1.36.0] Release packaging problems
by Beman Dawes 13 Aug '08

13 Aug '08

Grrr... 1.36.0 is up on SourceForge, but due to a screw-up on my part the .bz2 and .gz files don't include the generated docs. The .7z and .zip files do have the generated docs. The problem was caused by having to run some of the release process on Windows, some on Linux, and then combining the pieces by hand. That's a result of doc changes breaking the doc build on Windows. I'm going to be out of the office all day on non-Boost business, so won't get a chance to work on straightening out the mess until late today or tomorrow. --Beman

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