Ho Jan, Jan Stetka(e)k dio:

Yes I understand that I can't use shmem::map and std::map if they are both on the global namespace. I've looked at the implementation of the std::map header from the STL implementation that is included in vc++ 7.2 and that doesn't forward declare std::list in <map>. This is a design issue rather than a bug. Why forward declare shmem::list by including it in map.hpp when it isn't used?

All classes in Shmem include shmem_fwd.hpp or container_fwd.hpp where Shmem defines default arguments (for example default Less, or Allocator template parameter). That's why you get the predeclaration of list including map. Another alternative would be to declare a *_fwd.hpp for each class defined in Shmem, but you would get a lot of extra headers, and I would have a lot of work to maintain. Even if I don't include list predeclaration with map, I'm free to use any Shmem container in any Shmem class (for example, I can implement a pooled allocator using a list container), so it's likely that a Shmem class include will include more Shmem classes (predeclarations, or full declarations). I don't consider it a design error, but a design choice. What I see dangerous is pushing two namespaces, std, and shmem to the same context because they have similar classes. An alternative would be to rename shmem classes like "vector" to "shmem_vector", .... But weren't namespaces born to allow that? Regards, Ion