December 2013 - Boost - lists.preview.boost.org

[git] Near future.. How do we deal with git-native libraries?
by Rene Rivera 05 Apr '14

05 Apr '14

As the owner of the Predef library which exists originally in github and not svn.. I'm wondering about some things for the near future (as in this coming week): 1. Where will the git repo live for a library? Will the repo need to stay in the boostorg organization? Or is it possible/desirable to use the existing repo that's part of my user account? 2. I notice that there's a ".gitattributes" file in the svn imported version of the Predef repo. Will I need to add that file to my actual Predef git repo? And if so, is there a single canonical version of that file I should use? And a followup.. In the future if that file changes, does it need to change for all repos consistently? Rene. -- -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org - grafik/redshift-software.com -- 102708583/icq - grafikrobot/aim - grafikrobot/yahoo

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[asio] Bug: Handlers execute on the wrong strand.
by Greg Barron 04 Apr '14

04 Apr '14

Hi All, I would like to refer you to this bug report: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/9203 I won't paste the full contents of the bug report into this message. The executive summary is that the allocation algorithm for the implementation of asio::strand can and does allocate the implementation of an existing strand to strands that are subsequently allocated. This can have the effect that handlers wrapped in strand (b) will actually be executed on strand (a). I consider this to be a bug but if there is something that I'm misunderstanding about the operation of strands it would be great if you could help me clear it up. If the consensus is that this is a bug, what are the chances for it to be included in the 1.56 release? It is probably too late to be included in the 1.55 release. I've implemented a work around which could only be described as a hack and would be embarrassed to show it to anybody. But it gets me over my hump :). Thanks! -- Greg

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Post-git forking process
by Sohail Somani 29 Mar '14

29 Mar '14

Hey all, Often, I find bugs in Boost that I need to patch manually before the next release. What I used to do before was keep a copy of Boost in my source tree which made this easier: just patch it directly. This made it easy to modify, but annoying to post patches and honestly, they just got lost most of the time. With Git, it should become easier to contribute said patches as well as pull in whichever particular changes I need. However when I attempted such a fork recently, I was a bit lost. As I understood it, the process should have been: 1. Create a fork of https://github.com/boostorg/boost and use this fork in my project 2. Create a fork of the library/libraries I wanted to patch 3. Update the submodules in my boostorg/boost fork to point to my forked libraries 4. Post a pull request for the respective libraries. Once the changes have been accepted, point back to the official boostorg repo I failed terribly, no doubt due to PEBKAC. Is there a chance that someone could write a tutorial or a how-to guide for the recommended process of forking Boost with Git? The main thing I need is the ability to have a patched version of Boost that I can use while the patches are being reviewed/accepted/rejected. Thanks, Sohail

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[algorithm] Test failure in C++14
by Ben Pope 25 Mar '14

25 Mar '14

"clang++-3.4" -c -x c++ -std=c++1y -stdlib=libc++ -O0 -g -fno-inline -Wall -g -fPIC -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB=1 -DBOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK=1 -DBOOST_TEST_NO_AUTO_LINK=1 -I".." -o "/home/ben/development/boost/test/build/results/boost/bin.v2/libs/algorithm/test/is_permutation_test1.test/clang-linux-3.4~c14_libc++/debug/is_permutation_test1.o" "../libs/algorithm/test/is_permutation_test1.cpp" In file included from ../libs/algorithm/test/is_permutation_test1.cpp:13: ../boost/algorithm/cxx11/is_permutation.hpp:178:6: error: declaration conflicts with target of using declaration already in scope bool is_permutation ( ForwardIterator1 first1, ForwardIterator1 last1, ^ /usr/include/c++/v1/algorithm:1374:1: note: target of using declaration is_permutation(_ForwardIterator1 __first1, _ForwardIterator1 __last1, ^ ../boost/algorithm/cxx11/is_permutation.hpp:104:12: note: using declaration using std::is_permutation; // Section 25.2.12 ^ ../boost/algorithm/cxx11/is_permutation.hpp:205:6: error: declaration conflicts with target of using declaration already in scope bool is_permutation ( ForwardIterator1 first1, ForwardIterator1 last1, ^ /usr/include/c++/v1/algorithm:1361:1: note: target of using declaration is_permutation(_ForwardIterator1 __first1, _ForwardIterator1 __last1, ^ ../boost/algorithm/cxx11/is_permutation.hpp:104:12: note: using declaration using std::is_permutation; // Section 25.2.12 ^ 2 errors generated. I haven't looked in detail, but it looks like those two overloads were added in C++14 and need guarding with a suitable #if __cplusplus >= C++1Y_version_here Ben

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[signals2] Test failure in C++11 (trivial fix for incorrect usage of boost::optional)
by Ben Pope 06 Mar '14

06 Mar '14

I have the following errors: "clang++-3.4" -c -x c++ -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -O0 -g -fno-inline -Wall -g -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB=1 -DBOOST_TEST_NO_AUTO_LINK=1 -I".." -o "/home/ben/development/boost/test/build/results/boost/bin.v2/libs/signals2/test/signal_test.test/clang-linux-3.4~c11_libc++/debug/link-static/signal_test.o" "../libs/signals2/test/signal_test.cpp" ../libs/signals2/test/signal_test.cpp:32:16: error: invalid operands to binary expression ('boost::optional<int>' and 'int') if(max == false) max = *first; ~~~ ^ ~~~~~ "clang++-3.4" -c -x c++ -std=c++11 -stdlib=libc++ -O0 -g -fno-inline -Wall -g -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB=1 -DBOOST_TEST_NO_AUTO_LINK=1 -I".." -o "/home/ben/development/boost/test/build/results/boost/bin.v2/libs/signals2/test/track_test.test/clang-linux-3.4~c11_libc++/debug/link-static/track_test.o" "../libs/signals2/test/track_test.cpp" ../libs/signals2/test/track_test.cpp:36:14: error: invalid operands to binary expression ('boost::optional<int>' and 'int') if(max == false) Richard smith explains the problem here: http://llvm.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=18180#4 "OK, I see what's happening -- in Clang 3.3 and GCC 4.8, 'false' is being treated as a null pointer constant. boost::optional implicitly converts to an "unspecified-bool-type" that happens to be a pointer-to-member type, and thus can be compared against a null pointer constant via the built-in operator!=(pointer-to-member, pointer-to-member) overload. In C++11 onwards, 'false' isn't a null pointer constant any more, so this comparison is no longer valid. Clang 3.3 and GCC 4.8 don't implement that rule; Clang 3.4 does." The trivial fix is to change the if statements at: ../libs/signals2/test/signal_test.cpp:32:16: ../libs/signals2/test/track_test.cpp:36:14: to if(!max) rather than if(max == false). Ben

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DRYing BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT with decltype/Boost.TypeOf ?
by Damien Buhl 05 Mar '14

05 Mar '14

Hi dear Boost Fusion developers, I was asking myself if there were already plan to improve BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT to benefit from C++11 features like decltype ? This would be interesting to avoid the risk encountered that the types definitions can get out-of-sync. And would avoid typing type declarations twice. Currently there is BOOST_FUSION_DEFINE_STRUCT to avoid repeating the type information for each field. However this is something that makes most developer I know unhappy, as it obliges to modify the readable C++ aggregate types definition (i.e. Could be public headers) with this macro. Then there is the nice choice of BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT which obliges retyping the type and adds the risk that some field type information could get out-of-sync between the struct definition and the BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT listing. I think it would be valuable to add macros that would enable to select the fields that we want to adapt to a Random Access Sequence without requiring to repeat the type information. I would find more comfortable to write the example provided here http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_55_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/fusion/adapted/ad… as follow : namespace demo { struct employee { std::string name; int age; }; } // demo::employee is now a Fusion sequence BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT_EXT( demo::employee, (name) (age)) And a naïve implementation of BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT_EXT could be: #include <boost/typeof/typeof.hpp> #include <boost/fusion/include/adapt_struct.hpp> #include <boost/preprocessor/seq/for_each.hpp> #define ATTRIBUTE_DEFINITION(r, data, elem) \ (BOOST_TYPEOF(data::elem), elem) \ #define BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT_EXT(NAME, ATTRIBUTES) \ BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_STRUCT(NAME, \ BOOST_PP_SEQ_FOR_EACH(ATTRIBUTE_DEFINITION, NAME, ATTRIBUTES)) #endif The same could certainly be achieved for BOOST_FUSION_ADAPT_TPL_STRUCT, while I didn't check. Thanks for the really great job done in Boost.Fusion. Cheers, -- Damien Buhl alias daminetreg

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[git] automated update of superproject master branch
by Peter A. Bigot 14 Feb '14

14 Feb '14

I realize there are several email threads about how the super-project branch should be managed, but most pre-date live experience with boost on git and go deep into other aspects of the issue, so I still want to call this out specially: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/wiki/ModBigPicture specifies that the master branch on each module should be stable at all times, which is the right policy. Currently, the master branch on the super-project is automatically updated twice(?) per hour selecting all updates to the master branches of modules. Consequently, super-project master is the exact opposite of stable. This divergence is confusing. I'm unconvinced that waiting a few days will demonstrate a significant decrease in churn on the super-project master branch. Some is due to multiple updates to specific modules, which might decrease as maintainers become more familiar with git and only push once, but interoperability issues will still arise and there will be no way to tell which master branch commits produce a working Boost installation. There is value in having a branch with automated-update semantics, but IMO regardless of what the final policy will be, "master" is not the right choice for this, and automated updates of it should stop ASAP. Perhaps the update script can simply be moved to occur on latest/master and latest/develop. Leave master untouched until whatever gets committed to it has undergone cross-toolchain integration validation, and make develop available for changes to superproject content that are not just submodule updates. Peter

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sqlpp11: SQL for C++
by Roland Bock 06 Feb '14

06 Feb '14

Hi, over the last four or five years I developed several SQL libraries for C++. With C++11 I was finally able to create an SQL library that meets my own expectations and requirements. It is being used in production, I recently put it on github, and I would really like to hear from you guys whether this is something that could be interesting for you personally or for boost? https://github.com/rbock/sqlpp11 https://github.com/rbock/sqlpp11/wiki sqlpp11 is a template library representing an embedded domain specific language (EDSL) that allows you to * define types representing tables and columns, * construct type safe queries checked at compile time for syntax errors, type errors, name errors and even some semantic errors, * interpret results by iterating over query-specific structs with appropriately named and typed members. This results in several benefits, e.g. * the library user operates comfortably on structs and functions, * the compiler reports many kinds of errors long before the code enters unit testing or production, * the library hides the gory details of string construction for queries and interpreting string based results returned by select calls. I.e. you don't need to use strings in query construction where you wouldn't use them in SQL and there is no need to use positional arguments or to parse strings when obtaining fields from a result row (the latter being true unless you do not know which columns to select at compile time). The library supports both static and dynamic queries. The former offers greater benefit in terms of type and consistency checking. The latter makes it easier to construct queries on the flight. Specific traits of databases (e.g. unsupported or non-standard features) are known at compile time as well. This way, the compiler can tell the developer at compile time if a query is not accepted by the database (e.g. if a feature is missing). And the library can form the query in the correct manner, for instance if the engine uses concat instead of operator|| to concatenate strings. Two Examples: ============= Static Select: -------------- // selecting zero or more results, iterating over the results for (const auto& row : db.run( select(foo.name, foo.hasFun) .from(foo) .where(foo.id > 17 and foo.name.like("%bar%")))) { if (row.name.is_null()) std::cerr << "name will convert to empty string" << std::endl; std::string name = row.name; // text fields are implicitly convertible to string bool hasFun = hasFun; // bool fields are implicitly convertible to bool } Dynamic Select: ---------------- auto s = dynamic_select(db, tab.foo).dynamic_columns().from(tab); if (userWantsBar) s.add_column(tab.bar); for(const auto& row : run(s)) { std::cerr << "row.foo: " << row.foo; if (userWantsBar) std::cerr << "row.bar" << row.at("bar"); std::cerr << std::endl; }; Please let me know your questions/thoughts/suggestions/rants. Contributions welcome, of course :-) Regards, Roland

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[range] Can iterator_range also model Random Access Range?
by Mostafa 01 Feb '14

01 Feb '14

It seems that iterator_range can properly model any refinement of the Forward Range concept. Is that right? The reason I ask is that this is not very clear from the documentation, and I had to deduce this from both the iterator_range API and the Random Access Range concept definition. (See documentation at: range/reference/utilities/iterator_range.html) Thanks, Mostafa

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Interest in Base2/16/32/64 Encoding Library?
by Thomas Kemmer 27 Jan '14

27 Jan '14

Dear Boost Developers, I would like to know if there is interest in incorporating a generic Base2/16/32/64 encoding library into Boost. I am the author of such a libray, hosted at http://code.google.com/p/stlencoders/ and would be willing to contribute and make the effort of "Boostifying" it, if the Boost community is interested in such a thing. There have been several suggestions for a Base64 encoding library on this mailing list in the past. Most of them have been dismissed, since Boost already provides a Base64 implementation with Boost.Serialization's "Dataflow Iterators". Though I appreciate the dataflow iterator's design, from personal experience I think that for the basic task of encoding/decoding, a higher-level interface, e.g. one that takes padding and intermittent whitespace (MIME) into account, would benefit many developers. Currently, the stlencoders library - implements the Base16, Base32 and Base64 encoding schemes as defined in RFC 4648. Base2, i.e. binary encoding, is also supported. - implements encoding and decoding operations as generic algorithms that operate on STL-style iterators - supports different encoding alphabets using custom traits classes - supports different character types - lets the user define if/which non-alphabet characters should be ignored via predicates - provides reasonable performance that matches most "plain C" implementations stlencoders is currently designed as a stand-alone library with no dependencies on Boost (or anything but C++03); it would therefore take some effort and guidance from the community to properly integrate it with the rest of Boost. I would therefore appreciate any feedback regarding your interest in this. Kind Regards, Thomas

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