On Thu, Oct 23, 2025 at 4:17 AM Dmitry Arkhipov via Boost < boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
Url's and Charconv's maintainers decided to not play along with the charade and reference boost::core::string_view directly with the obvious drawback that that type is not documented anywhere.
core::detail::string_view was added because this pull request FROM 2018 (seven years ago) was rejected: https://github.com/boostorg/utility/pull/51 We really need to fix this properly. In my opinion the maintainer of utility::string_view made the wrong choice when they rejected the pull request to make the constructors more useful. The consequence is that several Boost authors now use core::detail::string_view because it better satisfies user needs. At a time when people complain that Boost has its own version of std types, it would be best if we could come together and sort this. I would like to see the change which motivated core::detail::string view get applied to utility::string_view. Then we can change core::detail::string_view to be a deprecated alias, and after one release we can remove it. This solves everyone's problem: 1. Users get a type that works 2. Folks are not triggered by having two string views 3. Every library doesn't have to lift string_view into its own namespace 4. Cross-linking in documentation becomes possible With each new version of C++ we are asking more and more of Boost users. We are asking them to opt-in to our ecosystem which includes its own types similar yet sometimes incompatible with the standard types. It is our responsibility to make sure that we respect the user's trust, and deliver types which work for them. boost::utility::string_view breaks that trust at a time when we cannot afford to alienate. The consequence of the decision not to be flexible with the utility::string_view API is that now we have two string views. We have documentation issues. We have discovery issues. There is strife within the community. Yet more and more libraries are choosing core/detail/string_view.hpp instead of utility/string_view.hpp, simply because the core version works better. It is in the project's best interest to show the C++ community writ large that we can adapt and satisfy user needs. Lets do that by resolving the two string views. Thanks