July 2007 - Boost - lists.boost.org

Boost building with CMake
by Bill Hoffman 17 Aug '07

17 Aug '07

Hi, I noticed the "boost development process / scope" thread on your list. A CMake user posted a link to your discussion. There is significant interest in the CMake community to help boost transition to CMake. Several people on the CMake list have volunteered to help, and Kitware is willing to put about 2 man weeks of effort into the conversion. I think that CMake has all the features to do what you need at this point, but if any bugs or issues are discovered during the process, we can fix them and/or provide work-arounds for the issues. I realize you have not yet decided on moving to CMake, but I thought I would put out this offer so that you could consider "free" support as one of the benefits you will receive from the port to CMake. I can see this happening in two ways. One would be for a CMake developer to create initial cmake files for boost, and get the basics working. Then, the work would be turned over to the Boost community. The other way would be to have a boost developer create the build files with help and support from the CMake community. Either way works for me. Of course, no one will want to do anything unless there is a commitment to actually use CMake. I will stay on this list while you decide, and answer any questions about CMake that may come up. Thanks, and I look forward to working with the boost community in the future. -Bill

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proxies and const
by Eric Niebler 13 Aug '07

13 Aug '07

General design question here. This came up on the user's list, and it made me question something I believed to be true. When writing a proxy for, e.g., a std container, I see two options for handling const. 0) Const-ness depends on the const-ness of the object being proxied: struct vector_proxy { std::vector<int> & vec; typedef std::vector<int>::iterator iterator; typedef std::vector<int>::iterator const_iterator; iterator begin() const { return vec.begin(); } ... }; 1) Const-ness depends on the proxy object itself: struct vector_proxy { std::vector<int> & vec; typedef std::vector<int>::iterator iterator; typedef std::vector<int>::const_iterator const_iterator; iterator begin() { return vec.begin(); } const_iterator begin() const { return vec.begin(); } ... }; I think a loooong time ago, I preferred (1) but these days (0) is more natural for me, but I can't say why, exactly. Just feels like that's how it should be. Thoughts? FWIW, it came up in the context of BOOST_FOREACH's handling of proxies, so it's not (far) off-topic. -- Eric Niebler Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com The Astoria Seminar ==> http://www.astoriaseminar.com

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[rfc] Boost Graphic/Game Engine
by Felipe Magno de Almeida 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

Hi, There were some little interest for this in another thread here in boost. So, who has any experience in game programming, it would be interesting to layout some requirements for a new engine and complaints from other engines. See if we can find out how a game engine should really be. Regards, -- Felipe Magno de Almeida

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[svg_plot] Progress of SVG_Plot
by Jake Voytko 10 Aug '07

10 Aug '07

All, I have uploaded the newest version of SVG_Plot to the Boost Vault, and am looking for feedback. This library allows you to make 1 and 2 dimensional plots from STL containers, hopefully with minimal hassle :), and outputs the images as SVG files. The package contains 9 example files in project-root/libs/svg_plot/example that give a reasonable demonstration of what the library is capable of currently. The link to the library in the Vault is here: http://tinyurl.com/2mqvba And a link to online documentation is here: http://www.tcnj.edu/~voytko2/html/ It has been tested on Visual Studio 2005 and GCC 4.1.2. I'm looking for what you like about the library/documentation, and what you don't like (but please check the To Do list first to see if I'm aware of it!) The only extra issue is that because of some last minute trouble, I currently can't make 2D plots from 1D STL containers (vector, etc), but that will hopefully be fixed within the week. Thank you for your time, Jake P.S. If you need a program to look at the .SVG files, try either Firefox, IE with Adobe SVG plugin, or Inkscape.

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Time Series review - 7/30-8/8
by John Phillips 10 Aug '07

10 Aug '07

My apologies for the delay in this posting, but the review period for the Time Series library submitted by Eric Neibler runs from Monday, July 30 until Wednesday, August 8. From the documentation: The purpose of the Boost.Time_series library is to provide data structures, numerical operators and algorithms to operate on time series. A time series is a series of data points, sampled at regular intervals. The library provides numerous time series containers, each with different time/space trade-offs, and a hierarchy of concepts which allow the time series to be manipulated generically. The library also provides operators and algorithms which use the generic interfaces to perform calculations on time series and accumulate various statistics about them. Boost.Time_series does not yet contain all the algorithms one might want in order to perform full time series analysis. However, the key contribution of Boost.Time_series is the framework and the rich hierarchy of concepts with which such algorithms can be written to efficiently and generically process series of data with widely divergent in-memory representations and performance characteristics. Boost.Time_series provides several such series containers, as well as mechanisms for defining additional series types and algorithms that fit within the framework. Some examples of series types that are provided are: dense, sparse, piecewise constant, heaviside and others, as well as adaptors for providing shifted, scaled and clipped series views. Please notice that the Time Series library uses some features of boost that will be part off the 1.35 release, but are not I the 1.34.1 release. For testing, you will need to either test against CVS Head (Which will not be available for much of Tuesday.) or use backports provided in the time series download files to update your 1.34.x installation. The library is available from http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?directory=Math%20-%20Numerics or by following the link provided on the review schedule. Thanks to all for your time and effort on this review. John Phillips Review Manager

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[Subversion] Subversion repository is now enforcing mime-types and eol-styles
by Douglas Gregor 10 Aug '07

10 Aug '07

Subversion handles end-of-line translation a bit differently from CVS. In Subversion, individual files need to be marked with both a mime-type and, for text files, an eol-style. These attributes determine how the Subversion client does end-of-line translation when communicating with the server. To maintain these properties requires some initial configuration of your Subversion client, described here under the "MIME types..." section: http://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/BoostSubversion The Subversion repository will verify that you have set the mime-type and eol-style properly when you try to commit, and will reject any commits that contain files without an appropriate MIME type. The configuration information above will automate the process of adding mime-types and eol-styles to new files, so the handling of end-of-line translation should be transparent in most cases. For more information about Subversion properties and how they are used with end-of-line translation, see: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch07s02.html - Doug

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Submission to "Who's Using Boost?"
by Seweryn Habdank-Wojewódzki 09 Aug '07

09 Aug '07

Hi! I am using Boost library in Open Source library for Kohonen Neural Networks construction and training. I would like (if possible) join to famous list of Open Source users of the Boost library :-). * The name of the Application/Product/Service. Kohonen Neural Network Library (KNNL) * The name of the company (where appropriate). --- Personal initiative --- Authors: * Seweryn Habdank-Wojewódzki * Janusz Rybarski * A paragraph describing the Application/Product/Service. Kohonen neural network library is a set of classes and functions for design, train and use Kohonen networks (self organizing maps). * Any information you can provide about which parts of Boost you used, along with any comments you may have on how Boost helped your product development. KNNL Library requirements: * Boost Library ver. 1.33. o Core of library needs: + boost::bind, + boost::function, + boost::type_traits o Demonstration program uses: + boost::program_options * URLs to your companies home page, and the home page of the Application/Product/Service if there is one. http://knnl.sourceforge.net/ Best regards. -- |\/\/| Seweryn Habdank-Wojewódzki \/\/

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[MD5] now in the vault
by Kevin Sopp 08 Aug '07

08 Aug '07

Hi all, I finished my own MD5 implementation today and decided to boostify it. It's not header only which is slightly inconvenient but Jamfiles, Docs and Tests are provided. Comments on the interface and other things are welcome! http://boost-consulting.com/vault/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=md… just extract it to your boost directory and run 'bjam md5' regards, Kevin Sopp

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[Boost][Interprocess] Lengthy test runtimes
by K. Noel Belcourt 08 Aug '07

08 Aug '07

Hi, The named_recursive test in boost.interprocess takes an excessive amount of time to run. Here you can see it's been running for 45+ minutes 13008 kbelco 25 0 14988 1360 1176 R 99.9 0.0 46:28.97 named_recursive 13014 kbelco 25 0 15040 1380 1188 R 99.8 0.0 46:10.09 named_recursive on fast hardware processor : 3 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 15 model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5160 @ 3.00GHz Is there something wrong with this test, or my system? I'd like to request that this test be removed or somehow scaled back so it runs a bit faster. Is this possible? Thanks. -- Noel Belcourt

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[x-files] the code's out there...
by Tobias Schwinger 03 Aug '07

03 Aug '07

Dear fellow Boosters, There is lots of useful, Boost-worthy utility code out there: Implementation details of existing / upcoming / (maybe even) proposed and rejected libraries that could stand alone, code on private hard disks never brought up for review, additions to existing libraries, etc. Fact is, that for small submissions the administrative overhead of (even) a formal (fast-track) review can be too high for developers' decency. Just imagine someone allocating five fast-track slots at once just for factoring out some unrelated bits of code from an existing library. So, why not group a bunch of unrelated utilities into a set of "Boost X-Files" and have them reviewed as a single library? It's completely non-intrusive to the review process and could seriously increase its efficiency. Like the idea? As a start, I stuffed my (tested and documented) "Boost candidate bits and pieces" into a common directory in the vault: http://tinyurl.com/35vlvb Feedback and more X-files welcome, of course. Regards, Tobias

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