November 2022 - 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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Boost Governance?
by René Ferdinand Rivera Morell 10 Aug '24

10 Aug '24

A disclaimer: I write this solely as a Boost Library author. And not in any other capacity or representing any other interest. It's now been at least a year since Boost switched from the Software Freedom Conservancy to the Boost Foundation for its governance organization. But have people noticed any difference? Did you know that switch happened? Did you know that they held an election for the Board of Directors and for the Officers? Do you know when that election happened? Do you know who got elected? Do you know how they were selected? Do you know what their responsibilities are? Do you know what their bylaws are? Do you know their financials? More importantly: Did you answer "no" to any of those questions? As a library author, I can say I definitely answered no to many of those questions. This is a problem. As authors, without asking, we should know those answers from the organization that governs our work. We should have input into how that organization governs. In other words, we deserve open and transparent governance; not the closed and opaque status quo. -- -- René Ferdinand Rivera Morell -- Don't Assume Anything -- No Supone Nada -- Robot Dreams - http://robot-dreams.net

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Library proposal - indexed_array
by Julien Blanc 12 Oct '23

12 Oct '23

Hi, I've written and released a (rather small) library which allows defining arrays with arbitrary index mechanisms (hence the name, indexed_array). This especially allows indexing with scoped enums, use non zero-starting indexes, or use sparse indexes. This is not a view, but an array in the sense that it owns the data, and provides the same guarantees and functionalities as std::array, such as triviality propagation, being able to reside in read-only program sections, etc. It also supports multidimensional indexing, and provides an indexed_span template class to access lower dimension content (which can be used outside indexed_array). Finally, it provides an opt-in safer way to initialize the array content, which is especially useful when using complex and/or changing indexing schemes (like based on externally generated files). The library is available here: https://github.com/Julien-Blanc-tgcm/indexed_array And the doc is here: https://julien-blanc-tgcm.github.io/indexed_array/ It requires C++17 and mp11, and has first-class support for describe-d enums. If there is some interest, i'd like to propose it for inclusion in boost. So i'm looking for people who would endorse it. Thanks and best regards, Julien

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Decommissioning Trac (svn.boost.org)
by Glen Fernandes 01 Feb '23

01 Feb '23

We have Trac in read-only mode after we migrated to Git, but we're still paying for the server. Do people still want to preserve any part of the content in some way? The wiki aside, there are old issues, with comments, and some of them have patches attached. Peter had the idea of generating static HTML content from Trac and hosting that on an archive section on boost.org. (I don't know how difficult this is to do). Thoughts? Suggestions? Glen

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Regression Results Not Updating
by Tom Kent 15 Jan '23

15 Jan '23

The results from the pages at: https://www.boost.org/development/tests/develop/developer/summary.html https://www.boost.org/development/tests/master/developer/summary.html Have not updated in almost a month. Can someone check on the process that manages this? Thanks, Tom

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Master branch is now open for bug fixes
by Marshall Clow 07 Dec '22

07 Dec '22

The master branch is now open for bug fixes and documentation changes. Other changes by release manager permission, as described in https://github.com/boostorg/wiki/wiki/Releases%3A-Beta-Merge-Policy The next deadline: On December 7th, master closes for all changes. As always, the calendar is at https://www.boost.org/development/ <https://www.boost.org/development/> — Marshall

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Boost.Text is looking for a (mini-)review manager
by Zach Laine 07 Dec '22

07 Dec '22

I've made all the recommended changes to Boost.Text that came up in the review. Glen, the previous review manager, recommended a mini review of Boost.Text once I'd made those changes. If you'd like to manage the mini-review, please let me know. For everyone, including potential reviewers and review managers, here are the major changes: * All the specific review feedback issues have been addressed. * The string layer is now gone. * The text layer got a major re-work. It is now a set of template-based adaptors (basic_text<>, vs. a text typedef. etc.), which lets everyone get what they want. You can change the underlying storage type (including whatever allocator you prefer), select UTF-8 or UTF-16, and change the normalization form. Glen recommended I drop this layer, but the library is way less useful without this stuff, and these changes address all the concerns raised about the text layer in the review. The updated docs can be found here: https://tzlaine.github.io/text/doc/html/index.html Oh yeah, and I added concept constraints to the whole library when you build in C++20 mode. Zach

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Reminder: Release notes
by Marshall Clow 29 Nov '22

29 Nov '22

If you’ve been meaning to write release notes for your library for the 1.81.0 release, now is the time to do it. ;-) — Marshall

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[release] Boost 1.81.0 beta 1 released
by Marshall Clow 24 Nov '22

24 Nov '22

Boost release 1.81.0 beta 1 is now available at: https://boostorg.jfrog.io/artifactory/main/beta/1.81.0.beta1/source/ The SHA256 checksums are: 135f03965b50d05baae45f49e4b7f2f3c545ff956b4500342f8fb328b8207a90 boost_1_81_0_b1.tar.gz 736b041748d04c573d145613161cf2e54beb210c5511b67e6fac5510b82b6646 boost_1_81_0_b1.7z 941c568e7ac79aa448ac28c98a5ec391fd1317170953c487bcf977c6ee6061ce boost_1_81_0_b1.tar.bz2 c58d50acf58a98d4f5a7d891257d154efa50ca90312ca446586c7b4f9b7d3f14 boost_1_81_0_b1.zip Release notes (still need updates): https://www.boost.org/users/history/version_1_81_0.html Please try the beta and report any problems you encounter. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the release. -- Boost Release Team

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GSoC 2023
by David Bellot 21 Nov '22

21 Nov '22

Dear Boost developers, organization applications for the Google Summer of Code 2023 will start next year in January, that is in about 2 months from now. In order to prepare the application for Boost C++, I would like to have a list of interested mentors and the topics they would like to propose to their students. The Google Summer of Code is a good opportunity for Boost to try ideas or improve existing libraries. Contact me now if you have any questions and are interested in mentoring next summer. Cheers, David

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minor incident report, boost.org
by Sam Darwin 16 Nov '22

16 Nov '22

Hi, This morning around 7am PST the boost.org website appeared to be unavailable. Upon investigation the cause of the problem was traced to DNS. boost.org resolved in DNS. However boost.org redirects to www.boost.org and that failed to resolve at the upstream DNS provider. # nslookup > server dns1.easydns.com > www.boost.org Server: dns1.easydns.com Address: 2400:cb00:2049:1::a29f:1835#53 ** server can't find www.boost.org: REFUSED A "dig" command also showed "..Request blocked by policy". After an hour or so, the situation cleared up. Most likely something at easydns.com. A similar event occurred earlier this year. The C++ Alliance has set up web proxies to alternative domains boostcpp.org and boostlibraries.org in case boost.org is unavailable. Those were online and may be used as a backup. Best Regards, Sam Darwin sam(a)cppalliance.org

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Boost tarball release that works with CMake
by Mojca Miklavec 16 Nov '22

16 Nov '22

Dear developers, For a CMake-based project we need to fetch Boost sources as part of the build process (unless boost is already installed, in which case that version can be used). We are using CMake's FetchContent that recursively clones the repository from GitHub, but that process is extremely slow. On the Windows runner in GitHub actions it takes roughly 3 extra minutes to "git clone" boost alone (or 11 minutes for something like "choco install boost-msvc-14.3"). I tried to fetch the .7z file instead, but that one doesn't work because the CMake support gets stripped from the distributed sources when generating the tarballs. A single file would result in a much faster and more reliable workflow. The file can be cached on GitHub Actions, on a local computer one doesn't need to repeatedly clone the repository (which also slows down other parts of CMake) etc. I started the discussion here: https://github.com/boostorg/release-tools/pull/35 where it has been explained to me that: - either the CMake support needs to be heavily refactored (unlikely to happen soon) - or the project could generate one tarball using the layout that's consistent with git repository The second option might eventually be fulfilled automatically by GitHub, but that is probably not likely to happen any time soon either. I can imagine that creating one extra '.tar.xz' with a slightly different layout to support CMake builds might be straightforward to make. Is there any chance to fulfill my dream to be able to build a boost tarball with CMake out-of-the-box? Thank you very much, Mojca

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The C++ Alliance
by Louis Tatta 15 Nov '22

15 Nov '22

Hello, my name is Louis Tatta and I am the CEO of The C++ Alliance, a non-profit founded by Vinnie Falco to support and bolster the C++ ecosystem through open source and education. This serves as a formal introduction and description of our recent activities to support Boost. As you all know, Travis CI (continuous integration) became unusable for Boost needs over a year ago. To ensure the availability of CI services, our CTO and chief of devops Samuel Darwin (“Sam”) has deployed Drone CI, an open source continuous integration framework, onto scalable Amazon Web Services instances rented by us. Over the last year there has been some turnover in terms of key individuals who administer the Boost website and support the Boost release process. We have made Sam’s time and expertise available to the Boost organization to support the release managers and core developers as needed to resolve IT issues. Vinnie has outlined a vision for revitalizing Boost by developing a new, modern website to stimulate technical discussion and publication of educational resources and ideas. To this end we have retained a design firm and the leading Python development house to build a new interactive website for Boost. The designs have been completed, and the coding for the website has been underway now for almost a year. Given the current trajectory we estimate that this project will be ready for internal viewing, testing, and feedback by authors and maintainers at the end of Q1 2023. Our current engineer staffing and projects are as follows: Klemens Morgenstern, a full-time Staff Engineer, is maintaining the Boost.Beast library and developing a new high client library built on Beast and Asio. Alan de Freitas, a full-time Staff Engineer, has been working on Boost.URL (now accepted) for the last year and has also taken over maintenance of Boost.StaticString. Dmitry Arkhipov, a part-time Staff Engineer is maintaining Boost.JSON, adding new features with guidance from Peter Dimov. Christian Mazakas, a full-time Staff Engineer and Joaquín M López Muñoz, a part-time Staff Engineer, have been working on the Boost.Unordered improvement project which is overseen by Peter Dimov. If anyone has questions about any of this please feel free to ask, or reach out to me by email.

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[release] Boost 1.81.0 Beta 1 Release Candidate 2 is available
by Marshall Clow 15 Nov '22

15 Nov '22

Unfortunately, people found a few problems in the RC1 (Thanks to everyone who tried it, and especially to those who reported problems) We now have a RC2, available at: <https://boostorg.jfrog.io/artifactory/main/beta/1.81.0.beta1/source/> The SHA256 checksums are as follows: bff5cf561ab65be658c030f6b348a4907cce039611e96112dc8f6e27b6a9f44b boost_1_81_0_b1_rc2.7z 7f300d48189b9f25bf3b214168912043681819f0ace332b0e9de503f7e23e72c boost_1_81_0_b1_rc2.tar.bz2 1619545e2f180caf6615eb83220ebcc1342c20704307b59871d987b95adb1326 boost_1_81_0_b1_rc2.tar.gz 3f9ebb8b23cab1617a7ae9a38b251e4803c917832b0c4c96b907cf122dec428f boost_1_81_0_b1_rc2.zip The changes are: 1) Fixed a compile error in Boost.ASIO 2) Fixed several compilation errors on Mac OS with libstdc++. (Boost.Config) 3) Fixed Boost.JSON compilation error with X11 4) Fixed a crashing but on shared_ptr on PPC (Boost.Sharedptr, Boost.Align) As always, the release managers would appreciate it if you download the candidate of your choice and give building it a try. Please report both success and failure, and anything else that is noteworthy. -- The Release Managers

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[Release] Boost 1.81.0 closed for beta
by Marshall Clow 14 Nov '22

14 Nov '22

Master is closed for all changes. See the release schedule at: https://www.boost.org/development/index.html <https://www.boost.org/development/index.html> -- Release managers

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[release] Boost 1.81.0 Beta 1 Release Candidate 1 is available
by Marshall Clow 13 Nov '22

13 Nov '22

Available at: <https://boostorg.jfrog.io/artifactory/main/beta/1.81.0.beta1/source/> The SHA256 checksums are as follows: 6b6b95fde0ec9c6c0e1584f35c6c2dc4eb6c8629c9635e844b8e6a9ad9594da1 boost_1_81_0_b1_rc1.tar.gz 9f2ce5d1cefb8f6b7e8cfcabc73632f348958e7cba2604dcb3688fecf6463d67 boost_1_81_0_b1_rc1.tar.bz2 e7547a789339499c6fc582a96ffb8989d97074f107520ddebc1ed5f30a0d6964 boost_1_81_0_b1_rc1.zip 758af4ae4f4224b6f2bd8f05fe0109d1f248c0377ee2dce03ccbeb30d82fb8b4 boost_1_81_0_b1_rc1.7z As always, the release managers would appreciate it if you download the candidate of your choice and give building it a try. Please report both success and failure, and anything else that is noteworthy. -- The Release Managers

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ccmath::abs() gives wrong result
by Gero Peterhoff 11 Nov '22

11 Nov '22

Hi Matt, ccmath::abs() gives wrong result for FP-values std::numeric_limits<FP-Type>::min() in constexpr context. test case: using type = float; constexpr type a = std::numeric_limits<type>::min(), b = boost::math::ccmath::abs(a); std::cout << a << std::endl << b << std::endl; 1.17549e-38 nan The Problem is: template <typename T> inline constexpr T abs_impl(T x) noexcept { return boost::math::ccmath::isnan(x) ? std::numeric_limits<T>::quiet_NaN() : boost::math::ccmath::isinf(x) ? std::numeric_limits<T>::infinity() : x == -0 ? T(0) : x == (std::numeric_limits<T>::min)() ? std::numeric_limits<T>::quiet_NaN() : x > 0 ? x : -x; } In the case of FP-types, only the sign-bit has to be deleted, since one cannot assume that quiet_NaN() and/or signaling_NaN() are always unsigned. thx Gero

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Boost 1.81.0 closed for major changes
by Glen Fernandes 10 Nov '22

10 Nov '22

Release has closed for major changes. Next week, 2022/11/09, master closes for all changes, in preparation for the beta. - Release team

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Build Issue - URL - msvc-14.0
by Tom Kent 05 Nov '22

05 Nov '22

In preparation for the upcoming lockdown and release, I just grabbed the latest snapshot from here: https://boostorg.jfrog.io/artifactory/main/master/boost_1_81_0-snapshot.tar… I ran it through the build process and got some issues with boost::url running on msvc-14.0. Some examples of them are: D:\RB\boost_1_81_0\boost/url/param.hpp(886): error C2134: 'boost::urls::grammar::string_view_base::string_view_base': call does not result in a constant expression D:\RB\boost_1_81_0\boost/url/param.hpp(886): note: failure was caused by call of undefined function or one not declared 'constexpr' The full output log is here: https://gist.github.com/teeks99/8d14da5b50cffda13f9ad5e23a8d80aa Tom

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