September 2004 - Boost - lists.boost.org

vc8.0 toolset (bjam)
by John Torjo 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

Hi all, I finally installed vc8 beta. It seems that vc8-tools.jam has the path to the binary MSVC tools wrong: It is: VC80_ROOT ?= $(ProgramFiles:J=" ")"\\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Whidbey\\VC7" ; But I think it should be: VC80_ROOT ?= $(ProgramFiles:J=" ")"\\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\\VC" ; At least that's what's needed on my machine... As a side note, I got a lot of warnings: cl : Command line warning D9035 : option 'GX' has been deprecated and will be re moved in a future release cl : Command line warning D9036 : use 'EHsc' instead of 'GX' Best, John -- John Torjo -- john(a)torjo.com Contributing editor, C/C++ Users Journal -- "Win32 GUI Generics" -- generics & GUI do mix, after all -- http://www.torjo.com/win32gui/ -- v1.4 - save_dlg - true binding of your data to UI controls! + easily add validation rules (win32gui/examples/smart_dlg)

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RE: [boost] Re: Call for Volunteers: the Synopsis project
by Stefan Seefeld 04 Oct '04

04 Oct '04

> From: David Abrahams [mailto:dave@boost-consulting.com] > Sent: September 30, 2004 08:21 > Stefan has recently been trying to get compile-time constants from > sizeof() into the parser. As he knows, this is going to mean handling > such things as template instantiation and overload resolution. This > is a great opportunity to learn more about how C++ works and to create > a compiler platform that's actually usable by C++ programmers for > prototyping new features -- one of the major obstacles in C++ > standardization is that the source for the only open-source C++ > compiler has a steep learning curve. I should mention that the design of the C++ parser allows to manipulate the generated parse tree in-memory and write it out into a file again in a non-lossy way, i.e. it could indeed be used as a source-to-source compiler. Regards, Stefan

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White cells in regression tables?
by David Abrahams 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

I posted this yesterday, but got no reply. Can anyone explain the vast number of white cells in the Boost.Python regression log? In particular, the tests noted below don't look like they're reported correctly in the log. ------ Due to what appears to be an MPL problem, neither libs/python/test/polymorphism.cpp nor libs/python/test/polymorphism2.cpp are compiling on vc6. This fact is reflected only strangely by the posted regression log, as white cells. ------ -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting http://www.boost-consulting.com

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[Poll] New look-n-feel for Boost documentation
by Eric Niebler 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

Joel de Guzman and I, with the help of many smart folks on the boost-docs list[*], have been working on improving the look-n-feel of Boost's documentation. We're ready to commit the new style, but wanted to check here first. Volodya was good enough to put up a copy of Boost's docs with the new style applied. You can preview them here: http://zigzag.lvk.cs.msu.su/~ghost/boost_docs/ Please say whether you like the new style or not. If not, be specific about why. If you are the author of Boost documentation, please have a look at your docs in the new style and see if anything is out of place. [*] Thanks to Doug Gregor, Vladimir Prus, Dave Abrahams, Reece Dunn, Jeff Garland, Rene Rivera and others for their valuable feedback regarding the new style. -- Eric Niebler Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com

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Order of entries in the Bibliography section?
by Joaquín Mª López Muñoz 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

I've noticed entries do not follow any definite order. Print publications are more or less sorted by year, but other sections are seemingly listed at random. I propose the following: * Inside each section, sort lexicographically by year and author, for instance online mentions would get like this [Burnap02] [Curran02] [Siek02b] [Casad03] [Lischner03] [Stein04] * Add this policy in the "How to update this page" section. If people are happy with this, I volunteer to do the changes. Joaquín M López Muñoz Telefónica, Investigación y Desarrollo

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[type_traits] alignment_of_test problem in Intel Linux
by Joaquín Mª López Muñoz 03 Oct '04

03 Oct '04

The problem (see for instance http://tinyurl.com/4j87e) seems to be a trivial confusion with the digraph <: I guess all it takes to fix this is to rewrite line 35 in alignment_of_test.cpp #define ALIGNOF(x) align_calc<x>::get() as #define ALIGNOF(x) align_calc< x>::get() (note the extra blank). OK to commit? Joaquín M López Muñoz Telefónica, Investigación y Desarrollo

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lexical_cast to self
by Maxim Yegorushkin 02 Oct '04

02 Oct '04

In generic code lexical_cast<> is sometimes used as a cast to the same type. I would like to shortcut this rather then going all the way by writing it to a stream and reading back. In my code I use the following workaround: template<class U, class T> inline typename boost::disable_if<boost::is_same<T, U>, U>::type lexical_cast(T const& t) { return boost::lexical_cast<U>(t); } template<class T> inline T const& lexical_cast(T const& t) { return t; } Does it make any sense to put it in lexical_cast.hpp? -- Maxim Yegorushkin

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Constrained genericity at last? (any interest in an operator traits/concept traits library?)
by Terje Slettebø 02 Oct '04

02 Oct '04

Colleagues: Are you tired of long and incomprehensible error messages when using STL, MPL, or some other modern template library? So am I! Up to now, we've had the Boost Concept Check Library, but unfortunately, you may still get long error messages with it (in the case of Intel C++ 6.0 and STLPort, pages and pages long, although the cause of the error is usually more clear, due to words like "concept_check", "function_requires", etc. showing up in the error message), and you can't overload on concepts, i.e. having several overloaded functions taking different kinds of iterators (such as std::advance). However, the invention of enable_if [HJW03] [JWL03] (now part of Boost) opened the door to overloading based on arbitrary properties of types. Now, what we needed was techniques for detecting type properties, which could be used to create "concept type traits". Using this, we could have done, e.g. for std::sort: template<class Iterator> typename enable_if<is_random_access_iterator<Iterator> >::type sort(Iterator begin, Iterator end) { // ... } Besides enable_if, there have also been other discoveries paving the way for constrained genericity (programming with concepts) in the later years. One of them being isAddable [KJSMA03], which could detect if there exists a "+" operator for the values "a" and "b" in "a + b", and gives a true/false result. The operator could be built-in, member function, or free function; it didn't matter. Other work on type property introspection in C++ has been done by other people, notably Paul Mensonides, with techniques for detecting member types, (non-static) member variables and functions, static member variables and functions, etc., using SFINAE to great effect. The original isAddable required exact overload match - no conversion on the arguments was allowed, so int + int gave true, but int + double gave false, even though 1 + 1.0 is well-formed - but using a modified version, it's possible to allow the normal promotions/conversions on the arguments, as well, letting int + double give true. In contrast, the other mentioned detection techniques requires an exact signature match, so these two ways complement each other: The exact match way may be used where the promotions/conversions way can't be used, and vice versa. Last spring (after the introduction of enable_if and isAddable) I realised that we now for the first time had discovered or invented all the components needed for a decent implementation of constrained genericity (or programming with concepts) in the current C++ language (as shown with the code example above)! I therefore started on a library of type traits for detecting the components required for concept checking, which meant detecting such things as operators, constructors (to the degree it's possible), etc. The modified isAddable is a key technique used in this "operator traits" part of the library. When this was complete, I continued with the "concept traits" part of the library, where the aim was to make type traits for all the C++ standard concepts, as well as all the Boost.MPL concepts (for the reasons that MPL is widely known and used, it's part of Boost, it could help a lot with better error messages in such metaprogramming libraries, and as an example of implementing non C++ standard concepts). I was about halfway done with the library last summer, and then I got a new job, where I became very busy, so unfortunately I couldn't continue with it at that time. However, a while ago, I've resumed work on the library, and it's now complete. Besides the mentioned enable_if, isAddable, and the introspection techniques, MPL is a core component of the library. Its lazy evaluation logical operators are indispensible for many of the concept traits, particularly the more complex ones. I couldn't have done it without any of you. Thank you. MPL is also used in the unit tests, generating the test matrix on the fly, testing each trait in a list against a list of types, and comparing the result against a table. The total number of tests generated is several thousand. Other approaches ------------------------- About a year ago, there have been proposals/discussion papers for adding support for concepts to the C++ language (see N1510, N1522 and N1536 at http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2003/) Using this, the above example could have been written as: template<RandomAccessIterator Iterator> void sort(Iterator begin, Iterator end) { // ... } This would also ease implementation of such concept overloading, because it would include the concept of concept refinement and "best match". Using the enable_if solution is a match or no match situation: either a function or class template matches, or it doesn't. Thus, if you want to implement std::advance as several overloaded functions using enable_if, you have to do something like this: template<class Iterator,class Distance> typename enable_if< mpl::and_< mpl::or_< is_input_iterator<Iterator>, is_output_iterator<Iterator> >, mpl::not_< is_bidirectional_iterator<Iterator> > > >::type advance(Iterator i,Distance d) { while(d--!=0) ++i; } The above function template is called if Iterator is either an InputIterator or OutputIterator, but not BidirectionalIterator (or "higher"). I.e. you have to manually exclude the next higher concept in the hierarchy, since BidirectionalIterator is also an InputIterator and OutputIterator (but should then call another overloaded function, not this one). If you also have a std::advance overload for BidirectionalIterator, you would otherwise get an error about ambiguity for the overloads (as they both would match), when called with a BidirectionalIterator. Nevertheless, the operator traits/concept traits library is something that can be used _now_, and which may give us more experience with programming with concepts. If the traits are used with libraries like STL or MPL, it has the potential to give drastically better diagnostics, and thereby making them easier to use. In addition, overloading on concepts is possible. A few of the traits (is_assignable, is_default_constructible and is_copy_constructible) rely on BCCL as a "last resort" when used for user-defined types, as there is no known way of detecting these for user-defined types. The library, including documentation, examples and tests may be found at (http://home.broadpark.no/~terjesl/operator_concept_traits.zip) (Yahoo Files is full, could we perhaps remove some of the stuff there that is now part of Boost?). Here's the synopsis from the documentation: Synopsis ------------- The library contains: - 46 operator type traits, covering all the overloadable (and therefore detectable) operators, as well as detection of default constructor, copy constructor and assignment operator. - 37 C++ standard concepts type traits, covering all the concepts of the C++ standard. - 19 Boost.MPL concepts type traits, covering all the documented concepts of Boost.MPL. - Facilities for defining your own concept type traits. - A complete set of unit tests. - Example programs, demonstrating its use. ------------- Some components may duplicate existing parts of Boost (such as MPL's has_xxx.hpp for member type detection, and mpl::is_sequence), and in other cases, the library includes functionality that may better belong in existing Boost libraries (type traits and MPL), and in those known cases, it's noted in the documentation. An aim is of course to syncronise the libraries, so that duplication is avoided. There may also be other components in the library that duplicate parts of MPL (or other parts of Boost) not noted here, and I'm all ears hearing about that, so that duplication may be eliminated. The operator traits/concept traits is essentially an extension to the Boost type traits library, but due to its specialisation (detecting operators, and generic concepts), as well as its size, it may be better to have as one or more separate components. Compatibility The library has been tested on Intel C++ 7.1, MSVC 7.1 and g++ 3.2. All tests pass on Intel C++ 7.1 and MSVC 7.1. For g++ 3.2, the operator traits tests pass, but most of the concept traits fails (either at compile time, or give wrong result). I intend to work to make the library work for g++ 3.2, as well. Bibliography [HJW03] Howard Hinnant, Jaakko Järvi and Jeremiah Willcock, Function Overloading Based on Arbitrary Properties of Types (http://www.cuj.com/articles/2003/0306/) 2003 [JWL03] Jaakko Järvi, Jeremiah Willcock, Andrew Lumsdaine, boost::enable_if, 2003 [KJSMA03] Dietmar Kuehl, Jaakko Jarvi, Jeremy Siek, Mat Marcus and Dave Abrahams, isAddable (ACCU Conference 2003 slides) (Regarding the salutation, I couldn't help doing a "Mat Marcus" here (http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/42877) ;) not at least since Mat is also one of the people behind isAddable, a key technique of this library) Regards, Terje P.S. For those who may be wondering where I've been all this time, the reason was the mentioned new job, which lead to me being away from more or less the C++ community for about a year, until a few months ago. P.P.S. I've also seen the last days there have been discussion on the Boost list on similar facilities (the "Proposal for 'is_dereferenceable' and other templatemetafunctions" thread started by Alex Chovanec). is_dereferenceable<T> is similar to this library's has_dereference_op<T> (in the operator traits part), except that the latter doesn't test for lvalue, etc. Moreover, some of the other existing functionality may work better than the corresponding ones in this library (like MPL's has_xxx.hpp, which, from the comments in the header file is able to detect reference member types, something this library can't), so maybe we could cooperate? P.P.P.S From libraries in the Boost Sandbox, it appears that it's ok, even common, for libraries that are not part of Boost to still use the Boost logo in the documentation. Therefore, that is done in this case, as well. I also hope John Maddock doesn't mind that I used the same kind of tables for these traits, and general style, as for the Boost type traits library. Feedback on this library is very welcome.

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RFI: RMI in C++
by Francis ANDRE 02 Oct '04

02 Oct '04

Hi Listers I am looking for a good C++ package that implements something quite close to Java RMI (NO Corba/IIOP please!) , I have looked at the WWW, and the boost.org but I did not found any serious answer except the article of A Batov in the "C/C++ Users Journal" http://www.cuj.com/documents/s=8206/cujweb0304batov/ Now that the serialization library is part of boost, could this be a item to add the the wishlist at boost.org??? Regards FA

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Python/Linux markup
by Aleksey Gurtovoy 02 Oct '04

02 Oct '04

Should we mark Boost.Python as unusable with gcc 2.95.3/Intel 7.1-8.0 on Linux? The number of failures for these looks unhealthy -- http://tinyurl.com/5z3hy. -- Aleksey Gurtovoy MetaCommunications Engineering

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