March 2010 - Boost - lists.boost.org

GSoC draft proposal: Heaps & Queues library
by Andre Ferreira 22 Mar '10

22 Mar '10

This is only a draft, not the final proposal. Personal Details: Name: André Martins Ferreira Email: greiskul(a)gmail.com University: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul < www.ufrgs.br > Course: Computer Science Degree Program: Bachelor of Computer Science Availability: About 30 hours a week will be devoted to the project, more if nescessary. Start Date: April 1st End Date: not yet decided Factors of influence: I live in the Southern Hemisphere, so the Summer of Code will be during Winter. While I will have a winter vacation where my attettion will be 100% devoted to the project, it will only last about a month, from July to August. During the rest of the time I will study in the morning, and work on the project on my free time, which luckily this semester entails all afternoons. I have worked during school time in previous semesters, and know that it's possible. Background Information: I am a brazilian computer science student, my course has 9 semesters, I am currently in the 7th. I have been programming for the last 5 years, mostly in C++ but also in Scheme, Lua, and many other languages. I've had an intership in developing parallel programs using MPI, and more recently in supporting an ERP written in C++. My main interest is in algorithms and data structures, but I'm also interested in functional programming languages. My experience with heaps comes from my university classes, Cormen's Introduction to algorithms book, various online sources and personal experimentation. While I have implemented heap data structures before (binary, binomial, skew), I have never integrated them in a single package generic package before and I'm looking foward to learn from it. I would rate my experience in the following technologies this way: 4 C++ 4 C++ Standard Library 2 Boost C++ Libraries 3 Subversion I use mainly Eclipse and Geany for development, but I have also done projects with Visual Studio. For documentation I prefer to use Doxygen. Purpose and goal: Heaps are very useful data structures and are used as building blocks in many algorithms. There are some heap data structures implemented in boost, for use in Boost.Graph for example, but at the moment they are coupled with the library they support. This project's goal is to decouple them into a boost/heaps library, cleaning them up where needed, and completely rewritting them if nescessary. All heaps will provide a common interface where possible, allowing algorithms writters to quickly change the data structure they are using without further changes to their code. The complexity of every operation on every heap will be documented, and tested to ensure correctness. A priority queue wrapper like std::priority_queue will also be provided. Heaps structures that will be provided: binary, binomial, fibonnaci, mutable heaps, suggestions are welcomed. Proposed Milestones and Schedule (work in progress): Binary heap implemented and submitted, possibly on top of STL heap algorithms, to have some foundation for the rest of the work, allowing tests on the other data structures to be compared to a simple but correct heap implementation. Moving heap structures from /boost/pending to the heap library, adapting them to a common interface and cleaning up where nescessary. No rewrites. Binomial Heap implementation. If any of the heap structures from pending were deemed unfit, rewritting them. This proposal is still under work, but I would like feedback from the community, not only on the project but also in the proposal itself.

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GSoC 2010 - Boost.Phoenix
by Thomas Heller 22 Mar '10

22 Mar '10

Hi List, As the subject indicates I am interested in the Boost.Phoenix project for this years summer of code. At first, a little information on me. I am currently studying at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. I am learning C++ since 2005. I have experience with Expression Templates. I used them as part of my bachelors thesis: http://www10.informatik.uni- erlangen.de/Publications/Theses/2009/Heller_BA09.pdf Some months ago I discovered the Boost.Proto library. I was trying to implement a DSEL for a GUI description language. This attempt can be found here: http://gitorious.org/phobos/main/trees/c014102b5aefb2592eef625047340fa92d85… However this approach was not continued, and I developed a spirit parser which gives more flexibility in that particular domain. I like the idea of Boost.Phoenix as it is right now. I think an implementation with Boost.Proto seems only natural. I searched the boost SVN repository but i couldn't find the prototypes you mentioned. A link to these would be helpful to be able further look into this project proposal. Regards, Thomas Heller

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queries regarding the BigInt project @ GSoc 2010
by Ankit Malpani 22 Mar '10

22 Mar '10

hello all! i am really interested in developing the proposed BigInt library for Boost as a part of GSoC this summer . Here are a couple of queries i have. 1. With regard to the data structure for handling such integers - are we looking at bit-level implementation(less space and probably more execution time) or digit level manipulation (more space - and probably less execution time). i.e. for an n-digit number is it ok to use up [n/2 to n] bytes of space or necessary to stick to log n amount of space for a BigInt object. 1.1 The arbitrary precision calculations could be implemented using the BigInt data-structure along with a scaling factor variable 2. what all are the expected functions of this library - basic arithmetic(add, subtract ,multiply, divide, modulo, powers) , relational(<=, <, >,>=, !=, ==) , bitwise operation ,and maybe added functionality like gcd and lcm are some of the things i can think of, please do add on to the list . 3. i have no prior experience of using Boost libraries, will this prove to be a problem with regard to this project? Please do refine this design and point out all the flaws in my understanding. Hope to get your replies soon Thanking You, Cheers! Ankit Malpani, 3rd year Undergraduate | BE. (Hons) Computer Science, BITS Pilani - Goa Campus -- Ankit Malpani 3rd Year Undergraduate | BE. Hons Computer Science BITS Pilani Goa Campus

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Trac XMLRPC support
by Vladimir Prus 22 Mar '10

22 Mar '10

Would it be possible to have XMLRPC plugin installed in Boost Trac instance? See: http://trac-hacks.org/wiki/XmlRpcPlugin The installation appears to be fairly simple (and indeed seems to just work somewhere else). This will allow to use third-party tools to grab tickets from Boost Trac, which will hopefully lead to more issues fixed :-) - Volodya

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Boost.Graph and SoC2010
by Cezary Bartosiak 21 Mar '10

21 Mar '10

Hello, I am writing in regards to your SoC2010 participation. I am particurarly interested in developing the Boost Graph library. I have got a working knowledge of graph and networks theory and C++ programming experience. I think I can handle any of the ideas listed in Boost.Graph section of the Project Ideas page as well as I could provide my own proposals for the library. I would like to get in touch with somebody responsible for Boost.Graph in order to talk about possibilities and what are the priorities. I would be glad to provide this person with additional information. Best, Cezary

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Re: [boost] [contract] Released Contract Programming Library on SourceForge
by Andrzej Krzemienski 21 Mar '10

21 Mar '10

> I have released on SourceForge a library that implements Contract > Programming (a.k.a. Design by Contract(TM) ) for C++. I am considering > to submit this library to Boost (as Boost.Contract). > Comments? Hi, Just another thought for a tiny extension that came to my mind. I tried to use the block invariant as a regular assert: int main() { CONTRACT_ASSERT_BLOCK_INVARIANT( fee fee fee ); } This code compiles and works fine. This is because "disabling block invariants" means that the entire macro invocation will disappear, inclusive of the nonsense I wrote inside. We are used to it because this is how C-style asserts work, but one of the advantage of asserts over comments, as it is often advertised, is that the predicates are checked for syntactic and (to some extent) semantic correctness. But this is not the case if we disable the assertion macros. I believe, it would be useful if "disabling block invariants" meant no run-time overhead, but still checking syntactic correctness. It would be possible if the macro CONTRACT_ASSERT_BLOCK_INVARIANT( expression ); were replaced with something like: ... sizeof( expression ) ... then, the expression is not evaluated, but required to be correct. If the value of sizeof is not used it should be eliminated by the compiler. Obviously, the same would be applicable for all the other types of checks, Regards, &rzej

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GSOC 2010 : Boost.graph
by Chinmaya Poswalia 21 Mar '10

21 Mar '10

In boost.graph what would be better : a) Manipulate the original graph - it would save space(crucial for big graph) -if the user want he can copy the graph object to a new object and then feed into functions b) Generate a new graph - although space will be allocated but user has the opportunity to directly input the graph.

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GSOC 2010
by Chinmaya Poswalia 21 Mar '10

21 Mar '10

Hello, I want to enquire following things? 1) Who are the mentors and can i get there email-address? I was not able to find there names on the project list site.

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[Boost.Locale] More updates
by Artyom 21 Mar '10

21 Mar '10

Hello, Updates ------- I had uploaded updated version of Boost.Locale that includes few bug fixes and some cleanup of MSVC warnings so now it clearly compiles with /W3 under MSVC. Also some documentation updated. Docs: http://cppcms.sourceforge.net/boost_locale/html/ Tutorial: http://cppcms.sourceforge.net/boost_locale/html/tutorial.html Download (boost_locale-svn_r1112.zip): https://sourceforge.net/projects/cppcms/files/ Formal Review Request --------------------- I want to submit the library for formal review: - When can it be done? - Do I have to provide full BJam build before formal review (at this point it builds fine with CMake)? - Do you think that I should wait more, improve the library more and if so what exactly? Best, Artyom

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[proto] call for help with msvc-7.1
by Eric Niebler 21 Mar '10

21 Mar '10

A recent check-in of mine (https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/changeset/60706) broke proto on msvc-7.1. For instance, see <http://tinyurl.com/yg5wgw5>. I don't have access to this toolset anymore. Is there anybody out there willing to give this problem a shot? Or is it time to drop support for this old compiler? -- Eric Niebler BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com

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