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Boost 1.30.2 is released
by David Abrahams 19 Aug '03

19 Aug '03

This release was managed by Dave Abrahams with the generous and dedicated help of Aleksey Gurtovoy and Misha Bergal of Meta-Communications, Inc., and of Martin Wille. We expect this to be the last release in the 1.30.x chain; see our CVS repository or its mirrors for new developments expected to appear shortly in 1.31.0. ------ release notes ------ August 19, 2003 - Version 1.30.2 (bugfix release) Boost Consulting is now hosting Boost CVS mirrors - see our download page. Backported changes to the config system, to better handle new compiler releases. Bugs in regression reporting in subproject tests were fixed. Tests are now run in the context of the user's PATH environment settings msvc-stlport and intel-win32-stlport toolsets now build static libraries with multithreading enabled, to be compatible with the STLPort builds. intel-win32 toolset now handles wchar_t correctly when intel is installed over msvc6. Backported fixes from the main trunk which prevent errors building the Boost.Test library in its default configuration. Backported portability improvements for checked_delete. Locale support for metrowerks (requiring a statically-linked runtime) is more uniformly handled. Backported conversion/lexical_cast's wchar_t fixes from the main trunk. intel-linux-tools: added rt to FINDLIBS in order to make the clock_gettime() function available (backport of a patch in CVS HEAD). regression/compiler_status.cpp: backported fixes in error log links generation. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com

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Boost 1.30.1 released
by David Abrahams 04 Aug '03

04 Aug '03

Version 1.30.1 is a bugfix-only update. See http://www.boost.org for details of what has been fixed. Version 1.31.0, due out shortly, will contain some changes to library interfaces (notably the iterator adaptors library) which may break client code. Version 1.30.1 was released in order to deliver non-interface-breaking improvements to existing users of Boost 1.30.0. Note for Boost.Python users: this release is not compatible with Python 2.3. For information on how to obtain a Python 2.3-compatible version of Boost.Python, please see http://www.boost.org/libs/python. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com

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Review Results: fixed-point decimal library
by Jens Maurer 23 Jul '03

23 Jul '03

The library has been reviewed by a number of boost contributors, including Paul Bristow, Ilya Buchkin, Fernando Cacciola, Daryle Walker and others. Thanks for your effort! Taking the review comments into considerations, the library will not be accepted into boost at its present state. Here's a short summary of what I believe are the most outstanding issues, but each review comment should be taken into account individually for a rework. - The documentation needs serious overhaul in both presentation and content. Words such as "precision" and "scale" should be defined, not all readers are experts in the domain. Specific technical requirements on the abstract type to be defined should be layed out ("financial applications" is not enough), and sound reasoning in the forest of alternatives should be provided. A comparison of the design to other programming languages or numerics standards is appreciated. Detailed semantics of each of the functions should be given, possibly similar in layout as the description of the standard library in the C++ standard. The discussion of the internal implementation should be moved to the very end to not distract readers from the interface. - The design should be reviewed. What happens with overflow? Financial people may want overflow signalled instead of silently eaten and producing wrong results. What happens with intermediate loss of precision? A number type is very surprising if its +,* operations are non-commutative. For a relatively simple value-based numerical type, inability to serve as a value type for STL containers is not acceptable. Providing a multitude of maths operators for various alien types such as int, double, and string instead of conversion or explicit constructors requires detailed reasoning to support the added complexity. On the positive side, boost::numeric has been agreed as the namespace for the library, and fixed_decimal appears to be a good name given the very interesting idea of standardized floating-point decimal numbers. Plus, the rounding control appears really ingenious syntax-wise. Nonetheless, thanks to Bill Seymour for bringing forward this library. Some boost readers wishing to code financial applications may now better understand the issues involved. Personally, I'm looking forward to a IEEE-conforming decimal floating-point library. Jens Maurer, Review Manager

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Formal Review: fixed-point decimal library
by Jens Maurer 09 Jul '03

09 Jul '03

The formal review of Bill Seymour's fixed-point decimal library runs 11 July to 21 July 2003 with myself serving as review manager. The library provides a class boost::fixdec::decimal that represents a fixed-point number. Unlike "double" or other floating-point representations, a fixed-point number has a fixed number of decimal digits. Together with explicit rounding control, this prevents surprise from rounding errors, for example in financial applications. The library is available in the boost files section at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boost/files/fixdecv22.zip The library has been successfully compiled on MSVC. (There should be an update shortly that allows compilation with como and gcc 3.3, presumably named fixdecv23.zip.) When submitting reviews, please state explicitly whether or not you think that the library should be accepted into Boost. For more information on the Boost formal review process, please see http://www.boost.org/more/formal_review_process.htm. Jens Maurer, Review Manager

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boost python
by Robert Pasquini 14 Jun '03

14 Jun '03

Hello, I'm new to boost. I'm trying to use boost for Python, which I'm also new to. I'm going to be porting python to platform where I will embedding python into another process. I will not be able to dynamically link modules on that platform. I think I see that there is a way to have the bjam compile as a static library. I would be able to use that given library file to link into the python core library file and use the module in my embedded program correct? Please correct me if I am wrong. I've been thrown into a lot, and I have to assess some things quickly, so forgive my lack of research. But, I have not been able to compile bjam yet, because my current system is kind of messy and the build batch file got confused as to which compiler to use (I'll be dealing with that later). Is there somewhere I can just grab a pre-built bjam .exe? Any help would be great! Thanks, Robert

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Command Line & Config review results
by Aleksey Gurtovoy 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

The Command Line & Config library by Vladimir Prus has been accepted into Boost, pending the incorporation of suggestions brought up in the review. Thanks to everyone for all their comments, and to Vladimir for being open and responsive to them! There've been a fair amount of suggested changes, many of which are documented on Wiki [1], and since the author himself keeps track of the issues, I won't reiterate them here - except for stressing the need for a) extensively reworked and extended documentation, and b) resolving the 'wchar_t' support issue before the library makes into official Boost distribution. Also, as acting on the review comments should result in large number of interface and design changes, I suggest that after incorporating them in the library and before the public release the author posts a note to the list so that the interested parties have a chance to comment on the final version. Once again, thanks to the author and all the reviewers. Aleksey Gurtovoy Command Line & Config Review Manager [1] http://www.crystalclearsoftware.com/cgi-bin/boost_wiki/wiki.pl?Program_Optio ns_Library_Pages

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Command Line & Config review comes to an end
by Aleksey Gurtovoy 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

The formal review of Vladimir Prus' Command Line & Config library is now at an end. A summary and conclusion will follow shortly. Thanks to everyone who responded, Aleksey Gurtovoy

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Formal Review: Command Line & Config library
by Aleksey Gurtovoy 21 May '03

21 May '03

The formal review of Vladimir Prus' Command Line & Config ("program_options") library starts today, May 21, and will continue until Monday, June 2nd. I will be serving as review manager. The library aims to provide developers with an easy and convenient way to obtain program options - user-supplied (name,value) pairs - via conventional methods such as command line and config file. The library is available at http://boost-sandbox.sf.net/program_options http://zigzag.cs.msu.su:7813/program_options Please note that the documentation is packaged separately from the sources. It also can be viewed online - http://zigzag.cs.msu.su:7813/program_options/html/. The library is known to work at least on the following compilers: * gcc 2.95 / 3.2 / 3.3 * Microsoft Visual C++ 7.1 * Intel C++ Compiler 7.0 * Borland C++ 5.5.1 When submitting reviews, please state explicitly whether or not you believe that the library should be accepted into Boost. For more information on the Boost formal review process, please see http://www.boost.org/more/formal_review_process.htm. Aleksey

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Boost version 1.30.0 released
by Beman Dawes 20 Mar '03

20 Mar '03

Boost version 1.30.0 has been released. The highlights include: * Filesystem Library added - Portable paths, iteration over directories, and other useful filesystem operations, from Beman Dawes. * Optional Library added - A discriminated-union wrapper for optional values, from Fernando Cacciola. * Interval Library added - Extends the usual arithmetic functions to mathematical intervals, from Guillaume Melquiond, Hervé Brönnimann and Sylvain Pion. * MPL added - Template metaprogramming framework of compile-time algorithms, sequences and metafunction classes, from Aleksey Gurtovoy. * Spirit Library added - An LL (unlimited lookahead) parser framework that represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++ source code, complete with semantic actions, ASTs and much more, from Joel de Guzman and team. * Smart Pointers Library - many enhancements, intrusive_ptr and smart pointer programming techniques docs added. * boost/assert.hpp, boost/current_function.hpp, boost/throw_exception.hpp, boost/checked_delete.hpp have been documented. * Date-Time Library - several fixes and small additions including an interface change to partial_date. * Function Library - added support for assignment to zero (to clear) and comparison against zero (to check if empty). * Operators Library - now takes advantage of named return value optimization (NRVO) when available, from Daniel Frey. * Regression Tests - Much expanded, plus a very nice summary page from Rene Rivera. * Test Library - added new facilities. * Many fixes and enhancements to other libraries. See www.boost.org for more information.

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Variant Library Review Results
by Jeff Garland 12 Mar '03

12 Mar '03

The Variant library by Eric Friedman and Itay Maman has been accepted into boost. I have summarized the main issues/discussion points below. [Interface/Design] -- There was a long discussion about a better name for 'extract' and whether it should be a member or free function. I'm not sure this was fully agreed, but it seemed like the group was leaning to a free function called 'get' patterned after the final tuple proposal to the library working group. -- The interface should allow variants with a 'void' or 'empty' type. Also, the interface should allow variants with only a single type or possibly no types. http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1547755 provides the conclusion of this discussion. -- Concern about allowing variant with const types and other requirements on bounded types. See http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 -- Concern about using std::type_info for reflection. Also in http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 [Implementation] -- Header files should be moved out of the /boost directory into the /boost/variant or boost/variant/detail. There should be a single include for everything: #include "boost/variant/variant.hpp" -- Template functions in header files (e.g. swap) need to be defined inline to avoid multiply defined errors. -- Several missing include files. See http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 -- There are several headers that extend other parts of boost (eg: config, mpl, type_traits) that should be incorporated into their appropriate boost locations. -- One reviewer suggested that moving everything into namespace boost::variant. [Requested Additions] -- The authors should review suggestions and keep in mind possible synergies with the optional library. There was a fair amount of discussion on this point, but no final consensus on the exact form of any relationships between the libraries. -- One reviewer requested the addition of an operator== which would return true if 2 variants have both the same type and value. [Documentation] -- A couple of reviewers noted a need to distinguish Variant from Any. Itay provided an good explanation which should be incorporated in the documentation. See http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1541597 for Itay's discussion. -- Source code for tutorial and sample programs should be provided under libs/variant/examples. -- There were many detailed documentation issues described in the detailed reviews cited below. In addition to the above summary, the authors should review, evaluate, and incorporate suggestions from the following reviewers. In particular, the authors have not yet responded to the reviews by G. Rozental and R. Richter. E. Brey http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1539095 G. Rozental http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 F. Cacciola http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1541664 R. Richter (private email). Thanks to all the reviewers. Jeff Garland Variant Review Manager

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