November 2012 - Boost - lists.boost.org

A GUI Library
by jinhao 09 Nov '17

09 Nov '17

Hi, all I am developing a GUI library, it takes aim at easy-to-use and portable library for modern C++ methods. The project at http://stdex.sourceforge.net A git repository at http://nanapro.codeplex.com A brief at http://nanaproject.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/preliminary-study-of-nana-c-lib… Is there any interest in this library? Regards Jinhao

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bad include guards
by Steven Watanabe 26 Jan '17

26 Jan '17

AMDG The following pairs of files have identical include guards ./boost/concept_check/general.hpp ./boost/concept/detail/msvc.hpp ./boost/concept_check/msvc.hpp ./boost/concept/detail/msvc.hpp ./boost/filesystem/cerrno.hpp ./boost/cerrno.hpp ./boost/interprocess/containers/tree.hpp ./boost/interprocess/containers/detail/tree.hpp ./boost/mpl/min_max.hpp ./boost/mpl/max.hpp ./boost/mpl/vector/aux_/front.hpp ./boost/mpl/list/aux_/front.hpp ./boost/multi_index/identity_fwd.hpp ./boost/multi_index/identity.hpp ./boost/python/pointee.hpp ./boost/python/detail/pointee.hpp ./boost/spirit/phoenix/closures.hpp ./boost/lambda/closures.hpp ./boost/xpressive/proto/v1_/proto_typeof.hpp ./boost/xpressive/proto/proto_typeof.hpp ./libs/config/test/boost_no_dep_nested_class.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_has_vc6_mem_templ.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_no_mem_templates.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_has_vc6_mem_templ.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_no_std_allocator.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_has_vc6_mem_templ.ipp ./libs/conversion/test.hpp ./libs/any/test.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/print_container.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/expand_bwd_test_template.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/allocation_test_template.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/print_container.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/iostreams/test/detail/utf8_codecvt_facet.hpp ./boost/detail/utf8_codecvt_facet.hpp ./libs/regex/test/regress/test_regex_search.hpp ./libs/regex/test/regress/test_partial_match.hpp ./libs/serialization/test/C.hpp ./libs/serialization/test/A.hpp ./libs/xpressive/perf/regex_comparison.hpp ./libs/regex/performance/regex_comparison.hpp ./tools/inspect/time_string.hpp ./tools/common/time_string.hpp In Christ, Steven Watanabe

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Arguing about names in Boost libraries
by Edward Diener 06 May '15

06 May '15

What is wrong with the people commenting on libraries for Boost who are so concerned about the names being used ? We are talking only about C++ identifiers and yet there are now endless discussions where people disagree on names or argue that some name is not what they want or that they like some other name, with a list of names that they find adequate. This is irrelevant. There is something mentally wrong about all those peoples spending endless amounts of time around this issue. I notice this does not happen nowadays for just one library but for ever single library, or proposed library, which is mentioned on this mailing list. Is this the way all of you people actually work in your daily jobs, or on your own projects, spending hours and days arguing with others about C++ identifiers for every little thing ? Are you not aware of the absurdity of your endless remarks ? Grow up ! Surely there are better things to do than carry on endlessly about some name, that is should be x or y or z or some other inane preferable list. It's time for somebody to say this, so I will do it. A C++ identifier name, as long as it is vaguely about what the functionality entails, is perfectly adequate. It does not have to satisfy everyone in the universe. Period !

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IDE for developing Boost
by Jens Müller 20 Dec '14

20 Dec '14

Hi, I am looking for recommendations for developing Boost, especially code in the graph library. At work, most developers (not for Boost, for some commercial software), most developers are using Eclipse. This works quite fine as soon as it has properly auto-discovered include paths etc. But before fiddling around with Eclipse to get all the settings right, I'd wanted to to ask for your recommendations. And maybe there are already settings available to make it "just work", at least initially. Cheers, Jens

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Why no non-null smart pointers?
by Ross MacGregor 29 Apr '14

29 Apr '14

I just created a very small smart pointer libary for our project. It will contain two types of shared pointers: SharedHandle and NullableSharedHandle. SharedHandle will be a shared pointer that cannot be null by ensuring a non-null construction while NullableSharedHandle will basically be a typedef for boost::shared_ptr. I firmly believe that code can be made more reliable by minimizing the use of nullable pointers. To this end, I think it is important that we start using non-null pointer types. Ideally the compiler would be able to understand a non-null pointer and catch bugs at compile time, but I think we can still improve things with a few runtime checks. If we make sure that a shared pointer is constructed with a non-null pointer and ban any reset() type methods, we guarentee that it points to something. This can be beneficial for the following reasons: 1. Any function that uses this type will no longer be burdened with precondition checks to make sure variables of this type are not null. 2. It's type is simply more explicit and better explains its function. 3. Moving the non-null check to the creation phase will reduce the possibility of encountering null pointer exceptions at runtime (assuming there are many more pointer references than constructor calls). So my little pointer library seems to make a lot of sense, but if so why hasn't this simple smart pointer variation made it into boost yet? Has this been discussed somewhere already? My search on non-null smart pointers is not revealing much discussion on the topic. Regards, Ross

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Interest in Base2/16/32/64 Encoding Library?
by Thomas Kemmer 27 Jan '14

27 Jan '14

Dear Boost Developers, I would like to know if there is interest in incorporating a generic Base2/16/32/64 encoding library into Boost. I am the author of such a libray, hosted at http://code.google.com/p/stlencoders/ and would be willing to contribute and make the effort of "Boostifying" it, if the Boost community is interested in such a thing. There have been several suggestions for a Base64 encoding library on this mailing list in the past. Most of them have been dismissed, since Boost already provides a Base64 implementation with Boost.Serialization's "Dataflow Iterators". Though I appreciate the dataflow iterator's design, from personal experience I think that for the basic task of encoding/decoding, a higher-level interface, e.g. one that takes padding and intermittent whitespace (MIME) into account, would benefit many developers. Currently, the stlencoders library - implements the Base16, Base32 and Base64 encoding schemes as defined in RFC 4648. Base2, i.e. binary encoding, is also supported. - implements encoding and decoding operations as generic algorithms that operate on STL-style iterators - supports different encoding alphabets using custom traits classes - supports different character types - lets the user define if/which non-alphabet characters should be ignored via predicates - provides reasonable performance that matches most "plain C" implementations stlencoders is currently designed as a stand-alone library with no dependencies on Boost (or anything but C++03); it would therefore take some effort and guidance from the community to properly integrate it with the rest of Boost. I would therefore appreciate any feedback regarding your interest in this. Kind Regards, Thomas

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[mpl] integral_c [type_traits] integral_constant limits
by vicente.botet 21 Oct '13

21 Oct '13

Hi, I was testing Boost.Ratio with gcc-4.6 c++0x and I get some compile errors when instantiating std::cout << boost::mpl::integral_c< boost::intmax_t, boost::integer_traits<boost::intmax_t>::const_max >::value ; ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp: In instantiation of 'mpl_::integral_c<long long int, 0x7fffffffffffffffll>': ratio_io\ratio_io.pass.cpp:24:6: instantiated from here ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: warning: integer overflow in expression [-Woverflow] ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: error: '-0x8000000000000000ll' is not a valid template argument for type 'long long int' because it is a non-constant expression ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: error: '-0x8000000000000000ll' is not a constant expression integral_wrapper.hpp:72 contains typedef AUX_WRAPPER_INST( BOOST_MPL_AUX_STATIC_CAST(AUX_WRAPPER_VALUE_TYPE, (value + 1)) ) next; The same line pass with gcc-4.6, gcc-4.5 and gcc-4.5 c++0x with just a warning. ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp: In instantiation of 'mpl_::integral_c<long long int, 0x7fffffffffffffffll>': ratio_io\ratio_io.pass.cpp:23:6: instantiated from here ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: warning: integer overflow in expression [-Woverflow] integral_c is by integral_constant, but integral_constant doesn't needs next a prior types. This means that with the current implementation we can not use integral_constant with the max value of the type. Do you think this is a bug in integral_constant? Best, _____________________ Vicente Juan Botet Escribá http://viboes.blogspot.com/

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[scope_exit] D-style scope(failure) and scope(success) in C++
by Evgeny Panasyuk 30 Sep '13

30 Sep '13

Hello all, D language has scope(exit), scope(success) and scope(failure) features - http://dlang.org/statement.html#ScopeGuardStatement : "... scope(exit) executes NonEmptyOrScopeBlockStatement when the scope exits normally or when it exits due to exception unwinding. scope(failure) executes NonEmptyOrScopeBlockStatement when the scope exits due to exception unwinding. scope(success) executes NonEmptyOrScopeBlockStatement when the scope exits normally. ..." Andrei Alexandrescu describes some of uses cases for scope(exit), scope(success), scope(failure) at his recent talk : http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Lang-NEXT/Lang-NEXT-2012/Three-Unlikely-Suc… There is Boost.ScopeExit library which emulates D's scope(exit) via BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT macro, but there are no analogues for D's scope(failure) and scope(success). Current alternative for these features is ScopeGuard idiom ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/More_C%2B%2B_Idioms/Scope_Guard , http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/generic-change-the-way-you-write-excepti/1844037… ). Boost.ScopeExit library itself suggests to use ScopeGuard - http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_51_0/libs/scope_exit/doc/html/scope_exit/al… : " Boost.ScopeExit is similar to scope(exit) feature built into the D programming language. A curious reader may notice that the library does not implement scope(success) and scope(failure) of the D language. Unfortunately, these are not possible in C++ because failure or success conditions cannot be determined by calling std::uncaught_exception (see Guru of the Week #47 for details about std::uncaught_exception and if it has any good use at all). However, this is not a big problem because these two D's constructs can be expressed in terms of scope(exit) and a bool commit variable (similarly to some examples presented in the Tutorial section). " I have made small library ( https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding#d-style-scope-guardsactions ) which supplies primitives (class unwinding_indicator, UNWINDING_AWARE_DESTRUCTOR macro) to determining when object destructor is called due to stack-unwinding or due to normal scope leaving. Currently it is implemented on top of platform-specific implementation of uncaught_exception_count function and tested on: {MSVC2005, MSVC2008, MSVC2010, MSVC2012, GCC4.1.2, GCC4.4.6, Clang3.2}x{x32, x64}x{default settings}. uncaught_exception_count is a function similar to std::uncaught_exception from standard library, but instead of boolean result it returns unsigned int showing current count of uncaught exceptions. Such primitives allow us to implement scope(success) and scope(failure) features in C++. I have made several proof-of-concepts: * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/scope_ac… * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/example_… * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/scope_gu… * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/boost_sc… boost_scopes.cpp example shows usage of BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE and BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS: try { cout << "Case #1: stack unwinding" << endl; BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT(void) { cout << "exit" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT_END BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE(void) { cout << "failure" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE_END BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS(void) { cout << "success" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS_END throw 1; } catch(int){} { cout << "Case #2: normal exit" << endl; BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT(void) { cout << "exit" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT_END BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE(void) { cout << "failure" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE_END BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS(void) { cout << "success" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS_END } Output is: " Case #1: stack unwinding failure exit Case #2: normal exit success exit " Currently BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE and BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS are implemented based on boost_1_51_0/boost/scope_exit.hpp by copy-paste and replace (just for proof-or-concept, of course it is possible solution with much less duplication). Semantically meaningful changes can be viewed as diff at https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/commit/d5513404323490ea99d9b6… Before posting here, I made posts on several C++ forums, but unfortunately get only a few feedbacks regarding ScopeFailure and ScopeSuccess. What do you think? Thank you. P.S. Related discussion: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2010/09/171051.php Best Regards, Evgeny Panasyuk

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[asio] Randomly having problems reading from the socket
by Torben Wiggerich 29 Jul '13

29 Jul '13

Hi all, I have some problems using the boost.asio.read for a TCP-socket. So far it works fine, but it randomly stops the transfer for at least 5 seconds. To resolve the error I used a simple synchronous server and client from the boost examples and modified it too send a larger amount of data. (307400 Bytes; this size comes from the program I'm trying to get run). On the client side I also changed the reading from the socket to read the complete data with boost.asio.read and transfer_all as argument. Both, server and client, measure the time for sending and reading to the socket and will give an error if it needs more than 1 second. Here is the sourcecode for the server: #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <boost/asio.hpp> #include <boost/date_time/posix_time/posix_time.hpp> using boost::asio::ip::tcp; using namespace boost::posix_time; int main() { try { boost::asio::io_service io_service; tcp::acceptor acceptor(io_service, tcp::endpoint(tcp::v4(), 8002)); tcp::socket socket(io_service); acceptor.accept(socket); unsigned char * array = new unsigned char[307400]; for (;;) { boost::system::error_code ignored_error; ptime startTime = microsec_clock::universal_time(); boost::asio::write(socket, boost::asio::buffer( array, 307400 ), boost::asio::transfer_all(), ignored_error); time_duration neededTime = microsec_clock::universal_time() - startTime; if ( neededTime.total_milliseconds() > 1000 ) { std::cout << "ERROR needed too much time: " << neededTime.total_milliseconds() << "ms" << std::endl; } } } catch (std::exception& e) { std::cerr << e.what() << std::endl; } return 0; } My client sourcecode: #include <iostream> #include <boost/array.hpp> #include <boost/asio.hpp> #include <boost/date_time/posix_time/posix_time.hpp> using boost::asio::ip::tcp; using namespace boost::posix_time; int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { try { if (argc != 2) { std::cerr << "Usage: client <host>" << std::endl; return 1; } boost::asio::io_service io_service; boost::asio::ip::tcp::endpoint endpoint( boost::asio::ip::address::from_string( argv[1] ), 8002 ); tcp::socket socket(io_service); boost::system::error_code error = boost::asio::error::host_not_found; socket.connect( endpoint, error ); if (error) throw boost::system::system_error(error); int counter = 0; unsigned char* array = new unsigned char[307400]; for (;;) { boost::system::error_code error; ptime startTime = microsec_clock::universal_time(); size_t len = boost::asio::read( socket, boost::asio::buffer( array, 307400 ), boost::asio::transfer_all(), error ); time_duration neededTime = microsec_clock::universal_time() - startTime; if ( error ) { printf( "body read error %s\n", error.message().c_str() ); } if ( counter % 5000 == 0 ) { std::cout << "passed: " << counter << "\r"; } ++counter; if ( neededTime.total_milliseconds() > 1000 ) { std::cout << "ERROR needed too much time: " << neededTime.total_milliseconds() << "ms" << std::endl; } } } catch (std::exception& e) { std::cerr << e.what() << std::endl; } return 0; } To reproduce the error just let it run for a while. It can take up to 30 minutes or even more... After a while it will produce the line: "ERROR needed too much time: 5007ms". Maybe with slightly different times, but all around 5 seconds. I tested it on different machines with Windows Vista and Seven. So am I'm doing sth. wrong? Is the reading from the socket correct? I'm using boost version 1.44. Kind regards Torben Wiggerich

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A more convenient Variant visitation syntax
by Kevin Wu Won 19 Jul '13

19 Jul '13

While Boost Variant is a wonderful library that fills a genuine hole in the C++ language, it is not as nice to use as it could be. The "correct" way to unwrap a variant is to apply a static visitor, but this method carries a high syntactic burden because it needs the user to define a class (probably somewhere far away) just so they can "switch" on the type of the object stored in the variant. I came up with a solution where the handler functions can be specified inline with C++11 lambdas. Here's an example: boost::variant< int, std::string > u("hello world"); int result = match(u, [](int i) -> int { return i; }, [](const std::string & str) -> int { return str.length(); }); The `match` function accepts the variant followed by the handler functions. The functions can be specified in any order. It will fail to compile if the functions do not match the types of the variant, if the return types are not all the same, or if a non-unary function is supplied. This is C++11 only because it's quite pointless without lambda functions. I've tested it with gcc 4.7. It doesn't work on gcc 4.6, which can't handle the variadic templates. Here's the code: https://github.com/exclipy/inline_variant_visitor What do you think? This started out for me as an exercise to learn template metaprogramming and C++11, but hopefully, it can actually evolve into something useful.

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