Re: [Boost-build] msvc toolset addition stl-security-theater

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] msvc toolset addition stl-security-theater
From: Johan Nilsson (r.johan.nilsson_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-09-04 02:38:41

Jurko Gospodnetić wrote:
>   Hi Johannes.
>
>   I've been thinking of adding something like this soon as it's
> preventing us from finishing cleanly porting one of our projects to
> MSVC 9.0.
>

[snip]

>
>   I have some questions too:
>
>   * Why the 'theater' part of the name?
>
>   * How about a <msvc-checked-iterators> feature defining _SCL_SECURE
> as 0 for 'off' (default) or 1 for 'on'.
>
>   * How about a <msvc-security-warnings> feature defining
> _SCL_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS & _CRT_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE for 'off' (default)
> or not defining them for 'on'.
>
>   * Are we sure we want the <msvc-security-warnings> feature (or
> <crt-security-theater> as you called it) to be marked as
> link-incompatible? Doesn't this just enable or disable compiler/linker
> warnings and does not affect the built executable/object code/library?

How about generalizing the concepts and just have them remain no-ops for 
other compilers/tools? I could imagine that e.g. checked iterators are (or 
will be) provided in some form for other platforms as well.

Some suggestions of the top of my head ("vendor" is meant to be a literal, 
not a placeholder):

<vendor-checked-iterators>
<vendor-stl-security>
<vendor-crt-security>

Or why not leave out the "vendor-" part totally. I just wanted to emphasize 
that these are non-standard[*] extensions.

/ Johan

[*] Or perhaps checked iterators are "allowed" by the standard, I honestly 
don't know.