[Boost-users] Re: Build+Install+/Zc:wchar_t in Visual studio builds

From: Edward Diener (eddielee_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-10-30 19:23:52

John Maddock wrote:
> Guys,
>
> We could of course create a new build variant to handle this, but
> with 8 regex lib/dll variants already I'm not keen to add another 8
> (apart from anything else testing already takes too long).

I think you have to do this John if you want to support both the C++ wchar_t
and the MS wchar_t in Boost libraries. Although there are VC++ predefined
macros, _WCHAR_T_DEFINED and _NATIVE_WCHAR_T_DEFINED, which are defined when
/Zc:wchar_t is used, they are also stupidly defined, according to the
documentation, when typedef unsigned short wchar_t is used ( talk about
idiotic MS decisions ). So Boost needs to use a macro which the
end-programmer must define which tells whether or not /Zc:wchar_t is being
used or not, and create another set of libraries accordingly.

The other choice of picking one, either /Zc:wchar_t or not, and then telling
developers that they will have to rebuild the library and maybe change its
name for their opposite use, will be disappointing to end-users.

I brought all this up a long time ago vis-a-vis VC++ 7+, but Boost
implementors of wide character code seem to want to go along and ignore this
problem until it bites them <g>. I am glad at least you realize its
ramifications.