September 2018 - Boost - lists.boost.org

[system] Do you use the deprecated features or cygwin/linux/windows_error.hpp?
by Peter Dimov 17 Sep '18

17 Sep '18

I'd like to query the Boost community as to whether certain legacy features of Boost.System are in use; namely, (1) everything guarded by BOOST_SYSTEM_ENABLE_DEPRECATED and (2) the cygwin_error.hpp, linux_error.hpp, or windows_error.hpp headers. Does anyone use these, and for what purpose? I'm thinking of dropping the deprecated features. In addition, does anyone use boost::throws()? I'm thinking of at least discouraging its use in the documentation, if not deprecating it outright.

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CMake and the Boost Steering Committee
by Edward Diener 16 Sep '18

16 Sep '18

I think it is a huge waste of time for anyone to discuss or implement a CMake solution for Boost until the Boost Steering Committee actually gets involves and defines what "Boost using CMake" actually means and gives the specifics as to what this actually entails. Otherwise nearly everything said about Boost and CMake, although well-intentioned, is just a lot of hot air and we are going absolutely nowhere trying to make any progress in this so-called direction. The Boost Steering Committee is largely at fault for saying that Boost would be using CMake, without defining what this actually means. Once again, as in our discussion about Boost dropping support for C++03, we are all wasting our time because the meaning of some language having been used is not clear and way too general to reach any meaningful conclusions. But in this case the only people who can really define what Boost using CMake actually means is the Boost Steering Committee, or someone representing the Boost Steering Committee on this mailing list, who can clarify what Boost using CMake is actually about, since it was the Boost Steering Committee who made the decision in the first place. If it is not the case that the Boost Steering Committee defines what Boost using CMake actually is supposed to mean but rather it is up to those on this mailing list to decide the issue, I would argue that Boost should focus on the simplest solution first, making Boost libraries, whether header-only or not, available for use in end-user CMake scripts in such a way that it will be easy to add this functionality for the 130 or so individual Boost libraries with the least amount of effort or work involved for each library, without arguing unduly about more complicated or more purist solutions. In other words lets start with the easiest, most practical solution, because I assure you when the smoke has cleared, 99% of those people involved in the discussion will not want to do the practical work of actual adding necessary CMake scripts to any of the 130 or so libraries involved, and even the maintainers of those libraries will not want to spend much time implementing some complicated CMake solution for their library. But I still think that without a specific definition of what Boost using CMake actually entails from the steering committee we are just wasting time and breath and to no good purpose.

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How do I test more configurations locally
by Joshua Marshall 14 Sep '18

14 Sep '18

Hello all, How do I test more configurations on my local systems rather than relying on TravisCI and AppVeyor? I've been working on fixing up BGL to pass basic TravisCI and AppVeyor tests, but it seems I have to be particularly reliant on those online tests. I'd like to have more of that done on my local system. There is probably a way to do that, but I don't know what it is.

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REMINDER: Formal Review of Histogram by Hans Dembinski
by Mateusz Loskot 14 Sep '18

14 Sep '18

Dear All, (NOTE: This is not start the review announcement yet) I'd just like to *remind* you all that the review of the Histogram library developed by Hans Dembinski is going to happen according to the schedule [1], from September 17, 2018 to Septenber 26, 2018. I will be sending the official START announcement this weekend. [1] https://www.boost.org/community/review_schedule.html Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net

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[outcome] Change semantics on UB from peer review agreed semantics?
by Niall Douglas 14 Sep '18

14 Sep '18

Dear Boost, At https://github.com/ned14/outcome/issues/150, Andrzej has raised his desire to change Outcome's semantics on UB from what the two peer reviews here agreed to previously. As this would be a major change to interface different to what the consensus here agreed to, I am asking boost-dev to weigh in with its opinion. Status: ------- Outcome has been finished, apart from docs, since April (http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/outcome-v2-1-progress-report-td4702900.h…) for the Boost and standalone variants, and since July for the experimental P1028 edition. The documentation has not been touched since the February review, but will be tackled when my current work contract ends this November, and I regain free time. Preamble: --------- Outcome has the notion of programmable "default actions" which occur when the user does something like call `.value()` on a `result<T, E>` which has an error. Let's call this "value-on-valueless". Outcome, as was approved here, has the following selector on `result<T, E>` in the Boost edition: ``` template <class T, class EC, class E> using default_policy = std::conditional_t< std::is_void<EC>::value && std::is_void<E>::value, terminate, std::conditional_t< trait::has_error_code_v<EC>, error_code_throw_as_system_error<T, EC, E>, std::conditional_t< trait::has_exception_ptr_v<EC> || trait::has_exception_ptr_v<E>, exception_ptr_rethrow<T, EC, E>, all_narrow >>>; template <class R, class S = boost::system::error_code, class NoValuePolicy = policy::default_policy<R, S, void>> using boost_result = basic_result<R, S, NoValuePolicy>; template <class R, class S = boost::system::error_code, class NoValuePolicy = policy::default_policy<R, S, void>> using result = boost_result<R, S, NoValuePolicy>; ``` So, if result's `E` is: - `void`, value-on-valueless calls `std::terminate()`. - contains an error code, value-on-valueless throws `system_error()`. - otherwise is hard undefined behaviour i.e. we tell the compiler that value-on-valueless will never happen, and the compiler doesn't even compile code for it to happen. The documentation, as was approved here, made it very clear that hard UB is the default for custom defined `E` types. See https://ned14.github.io/outcome/tutorial/default-actions/happens1/. A nice segfault usually emerges. For the standalone edition, judging from user feedback and bug reports, this hard UB behaviour is the most common intentional configuration for Outcome users. I have not received any complaints about this choice, if anything a majority has been choosing Outcome precisely *because* of this choice. Andrzej's request ----------------- Andrzej points out in https://github.com/ned14/outcome/issues/150 that it's too easy to get surprised by a small source change which causes the error code trait to no longer match the `E` type, thus flipping the code base from throwing `system_error` into hard UB unexpectedly and without warning. He wishes to change the default to failure to compile i.e. if result's `E` is: - `void`, value-on-valueless calls `std::terminate()`. - contains an error code, value-on-valueless throws `system_error()`. - otherwise a failure to compile with useful diagnostic. Users can, of course, manually specify a `NoValuePolicy` of `all_narrow` if they wish hard UB on value-on-valueless. It would be a non-trivial change from what peer review (twice) agreed, as the default would have substantially changed. What is boost-dev's opinion on this proposed change in semantics? Thanks, Niall

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list.boost.org
by David Bellot 10 Sep '18

10 Sep '18

Hi, I'm looking for the person in charge of lists.boost.org, the mailing list server. We're having an issue on one of the mailing list (ublas). Cheers, David

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[ublas] How to merge a PR?
by Frédéric 09 Sep '18

09 Sep '18

Hi, I submitted a PR 1 month ago. Something rather trivial. How can it be merge? https://github.com/boostorg/ublas/pull/56 Thanks, F

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Re: [boost] list.boost.org
by Bjorn Reese 09 Sep '18

09 Sep '18

On 09/09/18 00:13, David Bellot via Boost wrote: > I'm looking for the person in charge of lists.boost.org, the mailing list > server. We're having an issue on one of the mailing list (ublas). https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/02/232710.php

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[all] Request for out of the box visibility support
by Antony Polukhin 09 Sep '18

09 Sep '18

I'd like to draw attention to a problem with Boost binaries for Linux. There's an awesome -fvisibility=hidden flag for Linux compilers that improves load times, performance, size of binaries and reduces the chance of symbol collisions. More info at https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Visibility . Unfortunately, most of the Boost libraries do not set it by default: - atomic - chrono - container - context - contract - coroutine - date_time - exception - fiber - filesystem - graph - graph_parallel - iostreams - locale - mpi - program_options - python - random - regex - signals - system - test - thread - timer - type_erasure - wave Moreover minority of the above libraries just do not work with the flag. Users just can not run ./b2 cxxflags="-fvisibility=hidden" because there's a chance that some library could stop linking. Actually things are even more ugly. Linux distributions usually do not tune the build flags for each package so at least Debian based distributions build Boost with default flags. Users get suboptimal builds. If you're a maintainer of one of the above libraries *please do* the following steps: * Make sure that all the public symbols are accordingly marked with appropriate BOOST_SYMBOL_* macro. Instruction is available here: https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/libs/config/doc/html/boost_config/boo… * Turn on the visibility=hidden by default: * by adding <target-os>linux:<cxxflags>"-fvisibility=hidden" to the Jamfile if you do not care much for antique compilers (Example https://github.com/boostorg/stacktrace/blob/819f2b1c861dec7530372a990ecabab… ) * by using a more advanced technique for detecting the flag availability (For example see https://github.com/boostorg/math/blob/develop/build/Jamfile.v2#L20 or https://github.com/boostorg/log/blob/develop/build/Jamfile.v2#L24 ) P.S.: I would appreciate any comments or updates on the feature request. P.P.S.: Log, Math, Serialization (and Stacktrace) libraries already use that flag by default. Many thanks! -- Best regards, Antony Polukhin

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[range] #11202: boost.sort header conflicts with boost.range header
by Steven Ross 08 Sep '18

08 Sep '18

https://svn.boost.org/trac10/ticket/11202 has been sitting for years. The "using range::sort" causing the namespace pollution needs to be deleted, and then everything depending on that inside boost needs to be fixed. This will break people dependent on the namespace pollution, but that's the only way to clean it up. Is anyone willing to take on this cleanup? Is there a good way to identify cross-library dependency breakages in situations like this so they can be fixed?

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