August 2011 - Boost - lists.preview.boost.org

[Review] Review results for Lockfree
by Hartmut Kaiser 07 Oct '11

07 Oct '11

All, The review for the Lockfree library written by Tim Blechman started July 18th 2011 and ended on July 28th. I counted 8 votes, none of which were NO. All authors votes YES, some made additional requests. Overall, the verdict of the community was clear: Tim Blechmann's Lockfree library is ACCEPTED The discussion was lively and it touched on several points. Design ------ The design of the library is sound, the API is usable. Except for naming issues (discussed below) almost no comments have been made on how to change it. People reviewing the library would like to see a more modular approach to lockfree data structures in general, possibly by exposing building blocks or by utilizing policies. The general interest was to have a more diverse set of data structures available, such as a lock-free linked list or bounded and fixed-sized data structures. Atomics Library --------------- As the initial review announcement stated, Lockfree depends on an external Atomics library, which has to be separately reviewed in order to get into Boost as a first class library. There has been some discussions whether Lockfree could be accepted without Atomics being reviewed. Others suggested Lockfree may be reviewed and added to Boost SVN only after Atomics got reviewed (this was mentioned in the review announcement as well). After all those discussions and based on the wide interest Lockfree data structures have, I'd suggest to add the current Atomics library as an implementation detail to Lockfree. Special handling of compilers which already have implemented std::atomics would be good if added to Lockfree, though. Naming ------ The consensus was that the naming of the reviewed data structures has to be changed. The names should be either fifo and lifo or queue and stack. AFAIK, Tim already addresses this point. Documentation ------------- The consensus of almost everybody referring to the documentation was that it needs more work. Here is a short (but non-exhaustive) list of things being mentioned: - It lacks rationale and information about the implementation - The class synopsis of the data structures should be accessible from the "Reference" page. - Make non-thread-safe parts more explicit (fifo::empty is described as non-thread-safe) - Document exception guarantees - More information needed on internals, the design, and rationale I would like to thank all who participated in the discussions. Regards Hartmut --------------- http://boost-spirit.com

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Interest in Boost.Array companion: StaticVector - A statically allocated fixed capacity vector
by Andrew Hundt 06 Oct '11

06 Oct '11

I've implemented a small companion class to boost.array that functions like a stack allocated vector with fixed capacity. The motivation for this class came when I was using boost.array in an interprocess library, when I realized that I actually desired an adjustable size boost.array, without the complexity of the vector class in the interprocess library. The result is StaticVector, which is boost.array directly modified with a size in front of the array, and added facilities to match std::vector. The Implementation is available at: https://github.com/ahundt/Boost.StaticVector Sample Code: StaticVector<std::size_t,3> three; three.push_back(5); three.push_back(2); // size: 2 capacity: 3 three.push_back(3); three.push_back(1); // throws std::out_of_range exception indicating the capacity has been exceeded So here is the big question: Is there any interest in the class? Cheers! Andrew Hundt

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Build trunk 1.46 libraries problems
by Paul A. Bristow 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

I've just updated trunk, and note that version.hpp has been updated to 1.46. When I try to link previous tests, I get messages like LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'libboost_test_exec_monitor-vc100-mt-sgd-1_46.lib' But when I try to rebuild the libraries, they are all still *1.45.* :-( my log file is attached. I also note some config failures that suggest something else may be wrong? ...updating 1 target... compile-c-c++ i:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\math\config\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-multi \has_gcc_visibility.obj has_gcc_visibility.cpp libs\math\config\has_gcc_visibility.cpp(7) : fatal error C1189: #error : "This is a GCC specific test case". call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86 >nul cl /Zm800 -nologo @"i:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\math\config\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-mul ti\has_gcc_visibility.obj.rsp" ...failed compile-c-c++ i:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\math\config\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-multi \has_gcc_visibility.obj... ...failed updating 1 target... Performing configuration checks - ../config//has_gcc_visibility builds : no ...found 47 targets... ...updating 1 target... compile-c-c++ i:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\math\config\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-multi \has_long_double_support.obj has_long_double_support.cpp ...updated 1 target... - ../config//has_long_double_support builds : yes ...found 15 targets... ...updating 4 targets... compile-c-c++ i:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-multi \has_icu_test.obj has_icu_test.cpp libs\regex\build\has_icu_test.cpp(12) : fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'unicode/uversion.h': No such file or directory call "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86 >nul cl /Zm800 -nologo @"i:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-mul ti\has_icu_test.obj.rsp" ...failed compile-c-c++ i:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-multi \has_icu_test.obj... ...skipped <pi:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-mul ti>has_icu.exe for lack of <pi:\boost-trunk\boost\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-10.0\debug\threading-mul ti>has_icu_test.obj... ...failed updating 1 target... I've tried changing boost_root and boost-build environment variables to 1.46 but makes no difference. Suggestions. Thanks. Paul --- Paul A. Bristow, Prizet Farmhouse, Kendal LA8 8AB UK +44 1539 561830 07714330204 pbristow(a)hetp.u-net.com

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Interest in simple unformatted binary stream I/O?
by Beman Dawes 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

There have been many requests on Boost and various C++ newsgroups for unformatted binary I/O. For example, in 2003 Neal Becker wrote: I wonder if anyone has code for implementing unformatted I/O? What I have in mind is for the simple case where the application that reads data knows the data types, so this is not as complicated as the general marshalling situation. This proposal provides a very simple solution that works with standard library input and output streams. The one caveat is that the stream must be opened with filemode std::ios_base::binary to avoid certain data values being treated as line endings. int main() { fstream f("binary_stream_example.dat", std::ios_base::trunc | std::ios_base::in | std::ios_base::out | std::ios_base::binary); int32_t x = 0x01020304; int32_t y = 0; f << bin(x); // write 4 bytes f.seekg(0); f >> bin(y); // read 4 bytes BOOST_ASSERT(x == y); return 0; } For docs, header, and example code, see http://mysite.verizon.net/beman/binary_stream/binary_stream.html http://mysite.verizon.net/beman/binary_stream/binary_stream.hpp http://mysite.verizon.net/beman/binary_stream/binary_stream_example.cpp Is there interest in this for Boost? It seems way too small and simple to be a whole library itself. Are there any ideas where it should live and what namespace it should be in? --Beman

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[optional] Thoughts on disallowing assignment for wrapped references.
by Mostafa 04 Oct '11

04 Oct '11

Boost.Optional seems to really have a lot of potential for what I want to do, but one thing about it has been nagging me, specifically it's assignment semantics for wrapped references being different from the semantics of bare C++ references (see http://tinyurl.com/4yna643) Has/have the author(s) of the library or anyone considered disallowing assignment for Boost.Optional types that wrap references, and if so, what would the consequences of this entail? I rather disallow assignment in this case, then have what's basically a wrapper class behave partially differently than the type it's supposed to emulate. Thanks in advance, Mostafa

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[any] new version
by Martin Bidlingmaier 28 Sep '11

28 Sep '11

Hi, I've written a new version of boost::any. It does not depend on rtti and uses a static integer value instead of std::type_info to store type information. My version passed the unit tests included in boost 1_47_0 on vc++2010 express and gcc 4.5.(mingw) . With this mail, I'm sending the source and a small quick-and-dirty benchmark. On gcc, moving and copying performance seems to be roughly the same, any_cast however is about 400% faster. On msvc++, moving and copying times rise by ca. 50%, while any_cast is about 50.000% faster (although I guess the speed boost measured in a real benchmark would be in the order of magnitude of the gcc speed up). I would appreciate if somebody measured the performance with proper tools and tested it on more platforms. Sincerely, Martin Bidlingmaier -- NEU: FreePhone - 0ct/min Handyspartarif mit Geld-zurück-Garantie! Jetzt informieren: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freephone

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Name and Namespace for Potential Boost Extended Floating-Point
by Christopher Kormanyos 22 Sep '11

22 Sep '11

Hello, We are seeking a good name for a potential boost extended precision floating-point library. This is a multiple precision floating-point type which *behaves* well in C++. The original thread announcing this potential library is here: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2011/06/182334.php Some very helpful boosters are assisting me with the preparation of this potential library. We've still got a lot to do, but are making good progress. In order to continue, we need a good name for a potential boost multiple-precision floating-point type. For the multiple-precision real type we have names like: * multiprecision_real * mp_real * extended_float_tOur current favorite is the second:mp_real. For namespaces, we have: 1. boost::mp::mp_real 2. boost::multiprecision::mp_real 3. boost::multiple_precision::mp_realOur current favorite namespace is number 2: boost::multiprecision. This new data type behaves like a drop-in replacement for a POD. It also has a collection of transcendental functions and a complex data type. So we are proposing: namespace boost { namespace multiprecision { class mp_real { ... }; // The real data type. class mp_complex { ... }; // The complex data type. mp_real sin(const mp_real&); // The sin function for the real data type. class mp_uint { }; // A potential future multiple-precision unsigned integer type. class mp_int { }; // A potential future multiple-precision signed integer type. } } We would appreciate comments (negative or positive) and/or alternative suggestions for names. Thank you. Sincerely, Chris.

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[fusion] boost::fusion::nil bug
by Jeroen Habraken 18 Sep '11

18 Sep '11

Hi, Clang 2.9 just pointed out what's probably an error in fusion in boost-trunk, the same one I ran into during the Conversion review yesterday it seems. Note that GCC doesn't complain even with -Wall -Wextra -pedantic. The error: In file included from fusion.cpp:1: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/include/vector.hpp:10: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/container/vector.hpp:11: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/container/vector/vector10.hpp:15: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/sequence/intrinsic/begin.hpp:17: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/sequence/intrinsic/detail/segmented_begin.hpp:11: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/iterator/segmented_iterator.hpp:13: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/container/list/cons.hpp:14: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/sequence/intrinsic/end.hpp:17: boost-trunk/boost/fusion/sequence/intrinsic/detail/segmented_end.hpp:33:70: error: invalid use of incomplete type 'fusion::nil' segmented_end_impl<Sequence, fusion::nil>::call(seq, fusion::nil())); ^~~~~~~~~~~~~ In file included from fusion.cpp:1: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/include/vector.hpp:10: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/container/vector.hpp:11: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/container/vector/vector10.hpp:15: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/sequence/intrinsic/begin.hpp:17: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/sequence/intrinsic/detail/segmented_begin.hpp:10: In file included from boost-trunk/boost/fusion/sequence/intrinsic/detail/segmented_begin_impl.hpp:11: boost-trunk/boost/fusion/container/list/cons_fwd.hpp:13:12: note: forward declaration of 'boost::fusion::nil' struct nil; ^ 1 error generated. The code to reproduce the error: #include <boost/fusion/include/vector.hpp> int main(int, char*[]) { return 0; } It seems nil is either only forward-declared or the include with the declaration is missing. Kind regards, Jeroen Habraken

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[fusion] Algorithm/auxillary documentation
by Daniel James 10 Sep '11

10 Sep '11

Hi, The generated documentation for the algorithm/auxillary section hasn't been checked in. It should be at: http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/trunk/libs/fusion/doc/html/fusion/algorithm/… http://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/trunk/libs/fusion/doc/html/fusion/algorithm/… Daniel

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[serialization] or [spirit] JSON Archives
by Fernando Pelliccioni 08 Sep '11

08 Sep '11

Hi, After experimenting with Spirit.Qi to make a JSON parser, I had the need for a serializer. First, I thought I could serialize my model of JSON (json:: value, json: object, etc.), but that was not compatible with boost::serialization. I am currently writing a ARCHIVE for Boost Serialization, but I'm finding some problems in order to implement JSON correctly. The question is, does anyone know about some files to Boost Serialization already finished? I've seen the Archive made by Esteve Fernandez, but do not serve my purpose, because I just need JSON. I would like to develop a JSON parser which in turn is a compatible Boost Serialization serializer . Any ideas? Thanks and regards, Fernando Pelliccioni.

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