September 2019 - Boost - lists.boost.org

CMake Announcement from Boost Steering Committee
by Jon Kalb 13 Aug '24

13 Aug '24

The libraries produced by the Boost community have had a greater impact on the way that the C++ community writes code than any other library implementation. The focus of the Boost community will always be on the libraries, but it is undeniable that we are dependent on and often limited by the infrastructure of our trade. Years ago, the move to Git was contentious; yet, it was required to improve development. In a similar vein our build system has become an impediment for many developers and users, existing and prospective. Therefore, we, the Steering Committee, announce to the Boost community our desire and intent to move Boost’s build system to CMake for users and developers alike. We are soliciting comments and proposals from the community to guide the process and the goals. Our desire is that the community can come to consensus by the end of the calendar year with a vision of supporting users and developers. We understand that the actual process of achieving the end goal will be long, time consuming, and not without its share of conflict. We also recognize that the Boost community is comprised of bright and passionate individuals that are eager to get involved and help get work done. The members of the Steering Committee have been encouraged by the discussions and activity surrounding CMake on the mailing lists over the years and know that many people have voiced visions. We hope that each of you rejoins the discussion to support this initiative and contributes to the common goal of improving Boost’s integration into the broader C++ ecosystem. For the Boost Steering Committee, Jon Kalb, Chair jonkalb(a)boost.org

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[container] static_string ?
by Vinnie Falco 09 Nov '19

09 Nov '19

Beast has static_string which someone has asked to be move, is there any interest in moving this to Boost.Container? See: <https://github.com/boostorg/beast/issues/1691> <https://github.com/boostorg/beast/blob/b7230f12f16fe7a9f7a1ece5be1f607c8552…> -- Regards, Vinnie Follow me on GitHub: https://github.com/vinniefalco

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New JSON library from the maker of Beast!
by Vinnie Falco 23 Oct '19

23 Oct '19

I've been working on a massively-multiplayer online blackjack casino server, called Beast Lounge [1]. The server and client communicate using JSON-RPC over WebSocket. I have developed a brand-new JSON library for this project, in accordance with the following design goals: * Robust support for custom allocators throughout. * Array and object interfaces closely track their corresponding C++20 container equivalents. * Use `std::basic_string` for strings. * Minimize use of templates for reduced compilation times. * Parsers and serializers work incrementally (['online algorithms]). * Elements in objects may also be iterated in insertion order. You can see the JSON library in development here: https://github.com/vinniefalco/json Is there any interest in proposing this for Boost? I'm happy to hear feedback or answer questions about this library. Feel free to open an issue on the repository, or reply here. Thanks [1] <https://github.com/vinniefalco/BeastLounge>

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A solution to return dynamic strings without heap allocation. Any interest?
by Roberto Hinz 09 Oct '19

09 Oct '19

Hi all, I haven't been succesful at attracting interest in a formatting library [1] I've been working lately. But recently I realized that part of it could be isolated as a small standalone library that could solve an old common troublesome situation in C++: Suppose you need to create a function that returns/provides a string whose content and size is unknown at compilation time. The first approach is to make it return a `std::string`. But if it need to be usable in environments like bare-metal real-time system, then one usually makes it take a raw string as an output argument, more or less like this: struct result{ char* it; bool truncated; }; result get_message(char* dest, std::size_t dest_len); But this is clearly not a perfect solution since there's nothing really effective the caller can do when get_mesage fails because of the destination string being is too small. So I present the `outbut` abstract class. It somehow resembles `std::streambuf`, but with a simpler and lower level design, which is the result of many attempts looking for the best performance [2] and usability in my formatting library. Afaics, it does not require a hosted C++ implementation, though I would like someone else to confirm that. Now the caller of `get_message` has to choose or create a suitable class type deriving from outbuf, that dictates where the message is written to. For example, if the user wants to get a `std::string`, then `string_maker` will do the job: #include <boost/outbuf/string.hpp> // ... boost::outbuf::string_maker<false> msg; get_message(msg) std::string str = msg.finish(); Or, if one wants it to write into a raw string, then use `cstr_writer` char buff[buff_size]; boost::outbuf::cstr_writer csw(buff, buff_size); get_message(csw); auto result = csw.finish(); if (result.truncated) { // ... Those `finish` functions above do not belong to `outbuf`. They are defined in the concrete derived types only. It's solely by convention that they share the same name. Yes, using `string_maker` still leads to heap allocation and `cstr_writer` to string truncation. The problem isn't solved by these. However, a string object is never the final destination. So the user could rather use another class that writes the message directly into the final destination ( output console, a log file, an LCD display or whatever ). It is not difficult to implement concrete subtypes of `outbuf`. `outbuf` is actually a type alias: template <bool NoExcept, typename CharT> class basic_outbuf; using outbuf = basic_outbuf<false, char>; using outbuf_noexcept = basic_outbuf<true, char>; That `NoExcept` template parameter is perhaps the controversial part. It is not present originally in my formatting library. Besides the destructor, `basic_outbuf` has only one virtual function: `recycle()`, and it is declared as `noexcept(NoExcept)`. This is the only effect the `NoExcept` template parameter has. All other functions are guaranteed not to throw. Hence, by taking a `outbuf_noexcept&` parameter, a function states that the destination must not throw. That might be particularly good if such object comes from another module and we must avoid exceptions crossing modules boundaries. On the other hand, if a function takes an `outbuf&`, then it also accepts `outbuf_noexcept&`, because `basic_outbuf<true, CharT>&` derives from `basic_outbuf<false, CharT>`. When using `string_maker` you can choose between the two kinds. `string_maker<true>` derives from `basic_outbuf<true, char>&`. So if any exception raises from its internal `std::string`, then it is caught by a try/catch(...) block, stored as an `exception_ptr` and rethrown by `finish()`. This has the undesirable effect of delaying its proper handling ( after all, we rather stop what's being doing as soon as possible when an error appears ). So I think the recommendation would be to use `string_maker<false>&` if possible, and `string_maker<true>&` only if necessary. The reason why I think it's controversial is that it makes `recycle()` violates the Lakos Rule. And although the Lakos Rule is not a requirement in boost (afaik), I was wondering whether this library could interest LEWG in future as well. Anyway, this whole noexcept idea is not a central part of this library and can it be removed. Now, the other topic is how to implement that `get_message` function, i.e., how to write into an `outbuf` object. One can use `puts` and `putc` functions to insert string and chars. One can also use `fmtlib` through an output iterator adapter. Or one can write directly in the buffer. But I will ask you to read the doc [3] for that. It's a quick read, quicker than this email. The repository is: https://github.com/robhz786/outbuf I would prefer it to be part of Boost.Core instead of being a standalone library, and also to remove the `outbuf` namespace. But that is up to you. Best regards, Roberto [1] The Stringify library: https://github.com/robhz786/stringify [2] The great performance of Stringify is mainly thanks to the design of outbuf ( named there as `output_buffer` ): https://robhz786.github.io/stringify/doc/html/benchmarks/benchmarks.html#be… [3] "Writing into and outbuf object" https://robhz786.github.io/outbuf/doc/html/index.html#boost_outbuf.overview…

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[Boost.MSM] Please, update master with changes from develop
by Deniz Bahadir 08 Oct '19

08 Oct '19

Hello world, I just stumbled across a compilation-error with the latest Boost release (1.71) of Boost.MSM for which I already provided a merge-request [1] a year ago, and which was merged to "develop" branch at that time, too. Still, the "master" branch lags this merge-request (and a lot more [2] from former years which are in "develop") but has some other unrelated merge-requests [3] merged in which are not in "develop". I would love seeing "develop" being merged into "master" (and maybe vise-versa) so that bugs for which fixes already exist will no longer be present in the next Boost release. Thanks for taking care of. Deniz [1] https://github.com/boostorg/msm/pull/15 [2] https://github.com/boostorg/msm/compare/master...develop [3] https://github.com/boostorg/msm/compare/develop...master

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Re: [boost] New JSON library from the maker of Beast!
by Bjorn Reese 30 Sep '19

30 Sep '19

On 9/30/19 12:14 PM, julien.blanc(a)tgcm.eu wrote: > Do you have an example of an efficient implementation of a pull parser on top of async io ? I find push parsers really more straightforward in that case. Vinicius has an HTTP pull parser here: https://github.com/BoostGSoC14/boost.http > Pull parsers can also be built on top of push parsers, although it is less easy. Indeed, that is how we implemented XmlTextReader in libxml2, and it was a rather painful experience. Coroutines can help, as Phil pointed out, but pull parser are also a natural fit for parser combinators (e.g. HTTP contains a partial URL syntax, so it could be created combining HTTP and URL pull parsers.) I am not sure how well coroutines would handle this case.

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Who is maintaining Boost.Random?
by Christoph Conrads 29 Sep '19

29 Sep '19

Last Tuesday I submitted a feature request for Boost.Random and received absolutely no feedback which seems to be unusual judging by last week's discussions (e.g. secure-by-default networking with Boost.Asio). Is anybody maintaining Boost.Random currently and if not, how can I proceed with my feature request? Christoph Conrads

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How to handle contributions from anonymous?
by Hans Dembinski 27 Sep '19

27 Sep '19

Hi all, I got a PR from a contributor who prefers to remain anonymous. The person created new files and instead of putting a real name, the person added just initials. I am talking to the person to see whether they can be convinced to give a real name. Any advice on how to handle this? My feeling is that a copyright notice without a real name is illegal. I could publish the code in my name, but then a documented transfer of copyright from the contributor to me is missing, which then puts me in a vulnerable position. Any thoughts? Best regards, Hans

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MS STL now open source (and using Boost)
by John Maddock 26 Sep '19

26 Sep '19

Microsoft's standard library is now in the process of going open source (the code is there, but not the tests yet), see : https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/open-sourcing-msvcs-stl/ Interestingly they're using the Math library's special functions en-mass for enhanced <cmath> support, and a quick grep of the code turns up other references to Boost, though I haven't identified the libraries they've borrowed from yet. Hopefully this means that in the long turn we'll see patches and enhancements flowing in both directions for the benefit of all. John. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

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more (hyper)complex types
by Gero Peterhoff 26 Sep '19

26 Sep '19

Hallo Developers, Hello John, I'm missing the (hyper)complex types in boost::math: - dual, i²=0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_number - acomplex (anormal complex), i²=1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-complex_number - sedenion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedenion and the arithmetic functions for this types. Can you provide it? That would be great! thx Gero

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