September 2013 - Boost - lists.boost.org

[format] convenient format wrapper
by Alexey Klimkin 09 Sep '13

09 Sep '13

I found this boost::format wrapper to be very convenient as replacement of sprintf. Can something like that be a part of the library? #include <boost/format.hpp> #include <string> #include <iostream> using namespace std; using namespace boost; format& my_format(format& fmter) { return fmter; } template <typename T, typename... Args> format& my_format(format& fmter, T value, Args... args) { fmter % value; return my_format(fmter, args...); } string my_format(string fmt) { format fmter(fmt); return my_format(fmter).str(); } template <typename... Args> string my_format(string fmt, Args... args) { format fmter(fmt); return my_format(fmter, args...).str(); } int main() { cout << my_format("%s %.6f", "pi", 3.14159) << endl; return 0; } -Alexey

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[utility] Proposal to extract some components from Boost.Log
by Andrey Semashev 09 Sep '13

09 Sep '13

Hi, I'd like to extract some general-purpose components from Boost.Log to Boost.Utility so that they could be used in other libraries and user's code that is not related to logging. The components are mostly standalone already and are not tied to Boost.Log specifics. 1. BOOST_EXPLICIT_OPERATOR_BOOL() macro for defining explicit operator bool() for a class. For C++03 compilers the macro implements safe bool idiom or just a regular operator bool(), if the compiler doesn't handle safe bool well. The generated operator is implemented in terms of operator!(), which should be defined for the class: template< typename T > class my_ptr { T* m_p; public: BOOST_EXPLICIT_OPERATOR_BOOL() bool operator! () const { return !m_p; } }; Various different implementations of explicit/safe bool operator are present in different libraries. It would be good to unify them. Implementation: boost/log/utility/explicit_operator_bool.hpp 2. basic_string_literal< CharT, CharTraitsT > class template. String literal is similar to string_ref, but it only allows to be constructed from a string literal. Obviously, it doesn't allow to modify the literal and it doesn't allocate memory for the literal. It supports clear() though, which makes the literal object to refer to an empty literal. Otherwise it provides interface similar to std::string. Docs: < http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/log/doc/html/log/detailed/utilit… > Implementation: boost/log/utility/string_literal.hpp 3. type_info_wrapper class. The class wraps a reference to std::type_info and provides equality and ordering operators. The wrapper implements value semantics (i.e. it can be constructed and copied), which allows it to be stored in containers, including as keys. Docs: < http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/libs/log/doc/html/log/detailed/utilit… > Implementation: boost/log/utility/type_info_wrapper.hpp 4. empty_deleter class. The class can be used as a deleter (e.g. for shared_ptr) that does nothing. It can be useful in some cases, when you need a shared_ptr but you know you will delete the referred object by other means. For example, with Boost.Log this deleter can be used to create shared_ptr< std::ostream > to std::cout. Another use case is to create a weak_ptr to an object to be able to test whether the object has already been deleted. Implementation: boost/log/utility/empty_deleter.hpp 5. BOOST_LOG_UNIQUE_IDENTIFIER_NAME(prefix) macro. This macro expands in a unique (within the current TU) token that starts with prefix. This can be useful for declaring unique variable and type names within other macros. Not that this macro has much value but it could be useful for other libraries that define macros. Implementation: boost/log/utility/unique_identifier_name.hpp

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[Container] Strange flat_set crash with std::inserter
by Ben Pope 08 Sep '13

08 Sep '13

Hi all It seems that when I copy a sorted but non-unique range of randomly generated numbers to an output iterator generated from std::inserter to a boost::flat_set it crashes. At first I assumed it was because boost::flat_set doesn't have stable iterators, but it seems that the implementation of std::insert_iterator does the right thing by reassigning its internal iterator to the result of the insert operation before incrementing it. Apologies for not being able to reduce the problem further, but this one is a little strange, the following code demonstrates the problem (and some variations that do work) in boost 1.54: #include <boost/container/flat_set.hpp> #include <algorithm> #include <iterator> #include <numeric> #include <vector> template<typename ContainerT> void Populate(std::vector<size_t> const& input) { ContainerT container; std::copy( std::begin(input), std::end(input), std::inserter(container, std::end(container))); } int main() { const size_t Count = 1000000; std::vector<size_t> random_numbers; random_numbers.reserve(Count); std::generate_n( std::back_inserter(random_numbers), Count, &std::rand); std::vector<size_t> sorted_numbers(random_numbers); std::sort(std::begin(sorted_numbers), std::end(sorted_numbers)); std::vector<size_t> unique_sorted_numbers; unique_sorted_numbers.reserve(Count); std::unique_copy( std::begin(sorted_numbers), std::end(sorted_numbers), std::back_inserter(unique_sorted_numbers)); using namespace boost::container; Populate<flat_set<size_t>>(unique_sorted_numbers); // ok Populate<flat_multiset<size_t>>(sorted_numbers); // ok Populate<flat_set<size_t>>(sorted_numbers); // segfault, line 39 } It might be a little hard to reproduce with the rand() in there, I'm on 64bit Ubuntu 13.04 and it's reproducible with Clang 3.3 with libc++ and GCC 4.8.1. Here's the backtrace from Clang: #0 0x0000000000403aec in operator() (this=0x7fffffffd598, __x=@0x7ffff61c6320: 61595138, __y=@0x454000: <error reading variable>) at /usr/include/c++/v1/__functional_base:61 #1 boost::container::container_detail::flat_tree_value_compare<std::__1::less<unsigned long>, unsigned long, boost::container::container_detail::identity<unsigned long> >::operator() (this=0x7fffffffd598, lhs=@0x7ffff61c6320: 61595138, rhs=@0x454000: <error reading variable>) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/detail/flat_tree.hpp:66 #2 0x0000000000404367 in boost::container::container_detail::flat_tree<unsigned long, unsigned long, boost::container::container_detail::identity<unsigned long>, std::__1::less<unsigned long>, std::__1::allocator<unsigned long> >::priv_insert_unique_prepare (this=0x7fffffffd598, pos=..., val=@0x7ffff61c6320: 61595138, commit_data=...) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/detail/flat_tree.hpp:824 #3 0x0000000000404275 in boost::container::container_detail::flat_tree<unsigned long, unsigned long, boost::container::container_detail::identity<unsigned long>, std::__1::less<unsigned long>, std::__1::allocator<unsigned long> >::insert_unique (this=0x7fffffffd598, pos=..., val=@0x7ffff61c6320: 61595138) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/detail/flat_tree.hpp:354 #4 0x000000000040421d in boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::__1::less<unsigned long>, std::__1::allocator<unsigned long> >::priv_insert<unsigned long const&> (this=0x7fffffffd598, p=..., x=@0x7ffff61c6320: 61595138) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/flat_set.hpp:688 #5 0x00000000004041bd in boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::__1::less<unsigned long>, std::__1::allocator<unsigned long> >::insert (this=0x7fffffffd598, arg1=..., x=@0x7ffff61c6320: 61595138) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/flat_set.hpp:508 #6 0x0000000000401de4 in operator* (this=0x7fffffffd750, this=0x7fffffffd750, this=0x7fffffffd750, __value_=@0x7ffff61c6320: 61595138) at /usr/include/c++/v1/iterator:718 #7 __unwrap_iter<std::__1::insert_iterator<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::__1::less<unsigned long>, std::__1::allocator<unsigned long> > > > (__i=..., __first=..., __last=..., __result=...) at /usr/include/c++/v1/algorithm:1717 #8 end<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::__1::less<unsigned long>, std::__1::allocator<unsigned long> > > (__c=..., __x=..., __i=..., __first=..., __last=..., __result=...) at /usr/include/c++/v1/algorithm:1741 #9 Populate<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::__1::less<unsigned long>, std::__1::allocator<unsigned long> > > (input=...) at flat_set_crash.cpp:13 #10 0x00000000004017a6 in main () at flat_set_crash.cpp:39 or from GCC if you prefer: #0 0x0000000000404bed in std::less<unsigned long>::operator() (this=0x7fffffffdd10, __x=@0x7ffff62e7320: 61595138, __y=@0x453000: <error reading variable>) at /usr/include/c++/4.8/bits/stl_function.h:235 #1 0x00000000004047f9 in boost::container::container_detail::flat_tree_value_compare<std::less<unsigned long>, unsigned long, boost::container::container_detail::identity<unsigned long> >::operator() (this=0x7fffffffdd10, lhs=@0x7ffff62e7320: 61595138, rhs=@0x453000: <error reading variable>) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/detail/flat_tree.hpp:66 #2 0x0000000000404389 in boost::container::container_detail::flat_tree<unsigned long, unsigned long, boost::container::container_detail::identity<unsigned long>, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> >::priv_insert_unique_prepare (this=0x7fffffffdd10, pos=..., val=@0x7ffff62e7320: 61595138, commit_data=...) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/detail/flat_tree.hpp:824 #3 0x000000000040420a in boost::container::container_detail::flat_tree<unsigned long, unsigned long, boost::container::container_detail::identity<unsigned long>, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> >::insert_unique (this=0x7fffffffdd10, pos=..., val=@0x7ffff62e7320: 61595138) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/detail/flat_tree.hpp:354 #4 0x00000000004040ef in boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> >::priv_insert<unsigned long const&> (this=0x7fffffffdd10, p=..., x=@0x7ffff62e7320: 61595138) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/flat_set.hpp:688 #5 0x0000000000403fa5 in boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> >::insert (this=0x7fffffffdd10, arg1=..., x=@0x7ffff62e7320: 61595138) at ../yy/build/boost/boost/container/flat_set.hpp:508 #6 0x0000000000403b71 in std::insert_iterator<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> > >::operator= (this=0x7fffffffdbd0, __value=@0x7ffff62e7320: 61595138) at /usr/include/c++/4.8/bits/stl_iterator.h:640 #7 0x000000000040350a in std::__copy_move<false, false, std::random_access_iterator_tag>::__copy_m<unsigned long const*, std::insert_iterator<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> > > > (__first=0x7ffff62e7320, __last=0x7ffff6a50210, __result=...) at /usr/include/c++/4.8/bits/stl_algobase.h:335 #8 0x0000000000402c2f in std::__copy_move_a<false, unsigned long const*, std::insert_iterator<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> > > > (__first=0x7ffff62af010, __last=0x7ffff6a50210, __result=...) at /usr/include/c++/4.8/bits/stl_algobase.h:390 #9 0x000000000040237f in std::__copy_move_a2<false, __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<unsigned long const*, std::vector<unsigned long, std::allocator<unsigned long> > >, std::insert_iterator<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> > > > (__first=1210, __last=0, __result=...) at /usr/include/c++/4.8/bits/stl_algobase.h:428 #10 0x0000000000401b70 in std::copy<__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<unsigned long const*, std::vector<unsigned long, std::allocator<unsigned long> > >, std::insert_iterator<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> > > > (__first=1210, __last=0, __result=...) at /usr/include/c++/4.8/bits/stl_algobase.h:460 #11 0x000000000040120f in Populate<boost::container::flat_set<unsigned long, std::less<unsigned long>, std::allocator<unsigned long> > > (input=std::vector of length 1000000, capacity 1000000 = {...}) at flat_set_crash.cpp:10 #12 0x0000000000400c50 in main () at flat_set_crash.cpp:39 (gdb) Since my refactoring of the code above, the crash location has changed, it used to be in: boost::container::vector::priv_forward_range_insert_at_end_expand_forward boost/container/vector.hpp:2205 unique_sorted_numbers.size() is 999752. Unfortunately producing a sequential list of numbers with std::iota and then changing one of them to the proceeding value didn't repro the problem. Ben

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Re: [boost] [Boost.Interprocess] conditions variables get 10 times faster when opening a multiprocess browser
by Marcello Pietrobon 08 Sep '13

08 Sep '13

I've noticed the same 10 times acceleration even while I make a skyPE call... How can this have anything to do with interprocess programming? -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Boost-Interprocess-conditions-variables-… Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Problems with yield_k workaround. Still too slow.
by Marcello Pietrobon 07 Sep '13

07 Sep '13

Hello Boost team, As exposed by Gav Wood in http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Boost-Interprocess-Chronic-performance-o… Windows doesn't handle well the contest switching between threads. Basically if a thread is given a time to sleep for 1ms then the OS puts that thread on sleep for its entire timeslice (~20ms), no matter if the concurrent threads need a much shorter time to complete their job. The effect of this choice is that if you need to have two threads talking with each other through an emulated synchronization object, they take well 2 seconds to do just 100 back and forth. At least it seems to me that this problem arises only when *emulating * a synchronization object, which I understand is necessary, for example, in the interprocess library. It's not a problem of easy solution. There is an ongoing discussion in the interprocess library on how to fix this (see for example http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Boost-Interprocess-conditions-variables-… ) but clearly this is not a problem limited to it. The workaround http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_54_0/boost/smart_ptr/detail/yield_k.hpp improves the situation, yet only a bit. In order to isolate the problem I've run some tests using the interprocess library, with the example comp_doc_anonymous_conditionA.cpp (and B). This test is slowed down by this time of a factor ranging from 2 to 10, 100 or even 1000 or more times depending on how soon that infamous Sleep(1) is triggered. *The bottom line is that in yield_k.cpp we need to change the constant in the code * from 32 to *1000 * at least. I call this constant kMax: Here some test results, running XPsp3 on Xeon E5450 - dual socket 32bit CPU quad cores. 2GHz core speed. For test I changed comp_doc_anonymous_conditionA.cpp : that is 100000 iterations, while in comp_doc_anonymous_conditionB.cpp I've added the line just to emulate a job done by the thread while owning the mutex. That is: The results are (these numbers are representative of many tests I've run) : kMax = 32, jMax = 0 : time = 00:00:01.125000 kMax = 50, jMax = 0 : time = 00:00:00.403750 kMax = 100, jMax = 0 : time = 00:00:00.2803750 kMax = 65535, jMax = 0 : time = 00:00:00.203125 kMax ~= 64 is good kMax = 32, jMax = 10 : time = 00:00:32.843750 kMax = 100, jMax = 10 : time = 00:00:02.750000 kMax = 1000, jMax = 10 : time = 00:00:00.859375 kMax = 65535, jMax = 10 : time = 00:00:00.328125 kMax ~= 1000 is good kMax = 32, jMax = 100 : time = 00:04:01.953125 kMax = 50, jMax = 100 : time = 00:00:04.296875 kMax = 1000, jMax = 100 : time = 00:00:02.062500 kMax = 65535, jMax = 100 : time = 00:00:01.593750 kMax ~= 1000 is good If the job takes longer we need to increase kMax even more, but it seems that a value of 65535 cuts the problem and makes sure that a locked thread doesn't take most of the cpu time for more than one timeslice. -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Problems-with-yield-k-workaround-Still-t… Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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[Graph] floyd_warshall crashes using optimzation
by Tim Keitt 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

I'm getting seg faults when I use optimization with floyd_warshall_shortest_paths. Without optimization it works fine. d here is defined as struct dmat_t { typedef std::vector<edge_weight_t> storage_t; dmat_t(vertex_t n) : ncol(n), storage(n * n) {} storage_t::iterator operator[](vertex_t row) { assert(row < ncol); storage.begin() + row * ncol; } vertex_t ncol; storage_t storage; }; Is this from 'inf' getting optimized out or how I defined dmat_t? Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. 0x000000000040162a in floyd_warshall_all_pairs_shortest_paths<boost::adjacency_list<boost::vecS, boost::vecS, boost::undirectedS, boost::no_property, boost::property<boost::edge_weight_t, double> >, edge_thinning_diameter_t::dmat_t, boost::adj_list_edge_property_map<boost::undirected_tag, double, double const&, unsigned long, boost::property<boost::edge_weight_t, double> const, boost::edge_weight_t>, std::less<double>, boost::closed_plus<double>, double, double> ( zero=<optimized out>, inf=<optimized out>, combine=..., compare=..., d=<synthetic pointer>, g=..., w=...) at /usr/include/boost/graph/floyd_warshall_shortest.hpp:115 115 d[*firstv][*firstv2] = inf; Also, it does not seem that floyd_warshall_shortest_paths is compatible with bundled properties. THK -- Timothy H. Keitt http://www.keittlab.org/

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[atomic] atomic<int>::is_lock_free() returns false on iPad 4 (armv7s)
by Taylor Holliday 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

Hi, boost:atomic<int>::is_lock_free() returns false on iPad 4 (armv7s) but returns true on iPad 3 (armv7). Is this expected or did I build boost incorrectly? thanks! - Taylor W. Taylor Holliday, Owner/Founder Subatomic Software, San Francisco

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[boost.chrono] Slow down process (if specifing c++11)
by Gaetano Mendola 06 Sep '13

06 Sep '13

Hi have tried the following code compiling it with gcc 4.6.3, with four combinations: 1) -O3 2) -O3 (commeting out the chrono call) 3) -O3 -std=c++0x 4) -O3 -std=c++0x (commenting out the chrono call) and I'm obtaining the following runtime values: 1) 8921 ms 2) 8915 ms 3) 9400 ms 4) 8933 ms as you can see the combination: "c++11 and chrono call" slows down the entire process. I have tried the same with gcc 4.8.1 and all times are more or less the same. At this point I'm not sure if it's a problem of chrono with gcc 4.6.3 or simply an issue of 4.6.3 disappeared in 4.8.1 series. Regards Gaetano Mendola Here the code I have used: #include <iostream> #include <boost/chrono.hpp> #include <sys/time.h> #include <math.h> int main() { cpu_set_t myAffinityMask; CPU_ZERO( &myAffinityMask ); CPU_SET(0, &myAffinityMask ); sched_setaffinity(0, sizeof(myAffinityMask), &myAffinityMask); volatile float* myMemoryA = new float[(1<<24)]; volatile float* myMemoryB = new float[(1<<24)]; struct timeval myStart; struct timeval myStop; struct timeval myResult; boost::chrono::time_point<boost::chrono::steady_clock> t1 = boost::chrono::high_resolution_clock::now(); gettimeofday(&myStart, 0); for (size_t i = 0; i < (1<<24); ++i) { myMemoryA[i] = i; myMemoryB[i] = i+1; } delete []myMemoryA; delete []myMemoryB; for (size_t j = 0; j < 100; ++j) { volatile float* myMemoryA = new float[(1<<24)]; volatile float* myMemoryB = new float[(1<<24)]; for (size_t i = 0; i < (1<<24); ++i) { myMemoryA[i] *= sqrtf(myMemoryB[i]); } delete []myMemoryA; delete []myMemoryB; } gettimeofday(&myStop, 0); timersub(&myStop,&myStart,&myResult); std::cout << "Time: " << myResult.tv_sec*1000 + myResult.tv_usec/1000.0 << std::endl; std::cout << "t1: " << t1 << std::endl; }

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bjam assertion failure: does it really need stack alignment?
by Steve M. Robbins 05 Sep '13

05 Sep '13

Hi, A question for the bjam maintainers about https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/8993 The file tools/build/v2/engine/function.c contains this check: static void check_alignment( STACK * s ) { assert( (size_t)s->data % sizeof( LIST * ) == 0 ); } However, things other than LIST* are allocated on the stack. For example expand_modifiers() allocates VAR_EDITS objects, whose size turns out not to be a multiple of sizeof(LIST*) on some architectures (m68k in the above ticket). Does check_alignment() still make sense? Thanks, -Steve

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[thread] Can boost::this_thread::sleep_for() totally stop the thread?
by Klaim - Joël Lamotte 03 Sep '13

03 Sep '13

I'm having, sometime, trouble with a rare heisenbug (rare but appearing several times a week). I described it there: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17918548/can-windows-totally-stop-a-thre… There I ask if it's possible for windows to totally stop a thread that is sleeping too often. As I'm using boost::thread for sleeping this specific thread that, for unknown reason, sometime totally stop working, I'm also wondering if the boost::this_thread() implementation could not be doing something that the OS might not like? ----- I'll report the content of the page here: Can Windows totally stop a thread if it's sleeping too often? I have a rare heisenbug in a multi-threaded application where the main thread, and only this thread, will just do nothing. As it's an heisenbug it's really hard to understand why this is happening. The main thread is basically just looping. In the loop, it check several concurrent priority queues which contain tasks ordered by time to be executed. It pop a task, see if it's time to execute it. If it's time, it will just schedule it into TBB's task scheduler (using a root task which is the parent of all other tasks). If it's not time, the task is pushed again in the priority queue. That's for one cycle. At the end of the cycle, the main thread is put to sleep for a very short time that I expect will be longer in practice but it's not really a problem, I just don't want it to use too much resources when not necessary. Litterally: static const auto TIME_SCHEDULED_TASKS_SPAWN_FREQUENCY = microseconds(250); while( !m_task_scheduler.is_exiting() ) // check if the application should exit { m_clock_scheduler.spawn_realtime_tasks(); // here we spawn tasks if it's time this_thread::sleep_for( TIME_SCHEDULED_TASKS_SPAWN_FREQUENCY ); } m_clock_scheduler.clear_tasks(); m_root_task.wait_for_all(); I have a special task that just log a "TICK" message each second. It is automatically rescheduling until the end of the program. However, when the heisenbug appear, I can see the "TICK" disappearing and the application not doing anything else than the work that occurs in non-main threads. So it appear that only the main thread is touched. The problem can come from different places, maybe in the scheduling logic, but then it's also the only thread that have a sleep call. That sleep is a boost::this_thread::sleep_for(). My question is: **Is it possible that Windows (7 64bit) consider the main thread to be sleeping often and decide that it should sleep for a longer period of time than asked or be definitely ended?** I expect that it is not possible but I would like to be sure. I didn't find any precision on this in online documentation so far. ----- I really suspect that the problem can't come from the sleeping function but I need to eliminate each potential source of problem to isolate it. Thanks for your time. Joel Lamotte

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