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

A GUI Library
by jinhao 09 Nov '17

09 Nov '17

Hi, all I am developing a GUI library, it takes aim at easy-to-use and portable library for modern C++ methods. The project at http://stdex.sourceforge.net A git repository at http://nanapro.codeplex.com A brief at http://nanaproject.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/preliminary-study-of-nana-c-lib… Is there any interest in this library? Regards Jinhao

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bad include guards
by Steven Watanabe 26 Jan '17

26 Jan '17

AMDG The following pairs of files have identical include guards ./boost/concept_check/general.hpp ./boost/concept/detail/msvc.hpp ./boost/concept_check/msvc.hpp ./boost/concept/detail/msvc.hpp ./boost/filesystem/cerrno.hpp ./boost/cerrno.hpp ./boost/interprocess/containers/tree.hpp ./boost/interprocess/containers/detail/tree.hpp ./boost/mpl/min_max.hpp ./boost/mpl/max.hpp ./boost/mpl/vector/aux_/front.hpp ./boost/mpl/list/aux_/front.hpp ./boost/multi_index/identity_fwd.hpp ./boost/multi_index/identity.hpp ./boost/python/pointee.hpp ./boost/python/detail/pointee.hpp ./boost/spirit/phoenix/closures.hpp ./boost/lambda/closures.hpp ./boost/xpressive/proto/v1_/proto_typeof.hpp ./boost/xpressive/proto/proto_typeof.hpp ./libs/config/test/boost_no_dep_nested_class.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_has_vc6_mem_templ.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_no_mem_templates.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_has_vc6_mem_templ.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_no_std_allocator.ipp ./libs/config/test/boost_has_vc6_mem_templ.ipp ./libs/conversion/test.hpp ./libs/any/test.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/print_container.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/expand_bwd_test_template.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/allocation_test_template.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/interprocess/test/print_container.hpp ./libs/interprocess/example/printcontainer.hpp ./libs/iostreams/test/detail/utf8_codecvt_facet.hpp ./boost/detail/utf8_codecvt_facet.hpp ./libs/regex/test/regress/test_regex_search.hpp ./libs/regex/test/regress/test_partial_match.hpp ./libs/serialization/test/C.hpp ./libs/serialization/test/A.hpp ./libs/xpressive/perf/regex_comparison.hpp ./libs/regex/performance/regex_comparison.hpp ./tools/inspect/time_string.hpp ./tools/common/time_string.hpp In Christ, Steven Watanabe

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Arguing about names in Boost libraries
by Edward Diener 06 May '15

06 May '15

What is wrong with the people commenting on libraries for Boost who are so concerned about the names being used ? We are talking only about C++ identifiers and yet there are now endless discussions where people disagree on names or argue that some name is not what they want or that they like some other name, with a list of names that they find adequate. This is irrelevant. There is something mentally wrong about all those peoples spending endless amounts of time around this issue. I notice this does not happen nowadays for just one library but for ever single library, or proposed library, which is mentioned on this mailing list. Is this the way all of you people actually work in your daily jobs, or on your own projects, spending hours and days arguing with others about C++ identifiers for every little thing ? Are you not aware of the absurdity of your endless remarks ? Grow up ! Surely there are better things to do than carry on endlessly about some name, that is should be x or y or z or some other inane preferable list. It's time for somebody to say this, so I will do it. A C++ identifier name, as long as it is vaguely about what the functionality entails, is perfectly adequate. It does not have to satisfy everyone in the universe. Period !

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IDE for developing Boost
by Jens Müller 20 Dec '14

20 Dec '14

Hi, I am looking for recommendations for developing Boost, especially code in the graph library. At work, most developers (not for Boost, for some commercial software), most developers are using Eclipse. This works quite fine as soon as it has properly auto-discovered include paths etc. But before fiddling around with Eclipse to get all the settings right, I'd wanted to to ask for your recommendations. And maybe there are already settings available to make it "just work", at least initially. Cheers, Jens

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Is there any interest in a library for actor programming?
by Charousset, Dominik 28 May '14

28 May '14

Hi, is there any interest in a library for actor programming? The library we've developed is a C++11 open source library named "libcppa". It is currently released under LGPL2, but re-releasing the library under the boost license is not an issue. You'll find all important links and ressources either under http://libcppa.org or on the GitHub project page: https://github.com/Neverlord/libcppa, including a user manual as HTML or PDF. We've also submitted a paper to the C++Now conference. What is actor programming? For those of you who aren't yet familiar with the actor model: actors basically represent tasks or services that communicate via message passing. In libcppa, actors are very lightweight (you can spawn literally millions of them) and scheduled cooperatively using a thread pool (although actors are allowed to opt-out of the cooperative scheduling). Some of the main strengths of this programming paradigm are: (1) network transparency, (2) race conditions are avoided by design, (3) a strong failure model that enables developers to build reliable distributed systems, and (4) the actor model addresses both concurrency (multiple actors on one host) and distribution (any number of actors on any number of hosts). Here's the classical hello world example: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #include <string> #include <iostream> #include "cppa/cppa.hpp" using namespace std; using namespace cppa; void mirror() { // wait for messages become ( // invoke this lambda expression if we receive a string on_arg_match >> [](const string& what) { // prints "Hello World!" via aout (thread-safe cout wrapper) aout << what << endl; // replies "!dlroW olleH" reply(string(what.rbegin(), what.rend())); // terminates this actor ('become' otherwise loops forever) self->quit(); } ); } void hello_world(const actor_ptr& buddy) { // send "Hello World!" to our buddy ... sync_send(buddy, "Hello World!").then( // ... and wait for a response on_arg_match >> [](const string& what) { // prints "!dlroW olleH" aout << what << endl; } ); } int main() { // create a new actor that calls 'mirror()' auto mirror_actor = spawn(mirror); // create another actor that calls 'hello_world(mirror_actor)' spawn(hello_world, mirror_actor); // wait until all other actors we have spawned are done await_all_others_done(); // run cleanup code before exiting main shutdown(); } ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A message is simply a tuple of values that is pattern matched at the receiver. For example, " on_arg_match >> [](const string& what) {...}" defines a message handler that is called whenever a tuple with one single string element arrives. "on_arg_match" simply defines a pattern that matches the signature of the given lambda. Please have a look at the examples folder on GitHub (https://github.com/Neverlord/libcppa/tree/master/examples) or at the user manual (http://neverlord.github.io/libcppa/manual/) if you want to see more examples. Best regards, Dominik Charousset

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required toolsets
by Steven Watanabe 14 May '14

14 May '14

AMDG The list of required toolsets in explicit-failures-markup.xml is out-dated. Therefore, if no one objects, I propose setting it to the following: msvc-10.0, msvc-11.0, gcc-4.6, gcc-4.7, clang-darwin-11, clang-darwin-4.2.1, clang-linux-3.1, clang-linux-3.2, gcc-mingw-4.7, gcc-mingw-4.6 (two releases of each major compiler that appears in both the trunk and release regression tests) The sole effect of this is to determine which toolsets appear in the issues list: http://www.boost.org/development/tests/trunk/developer/issues.html In Christ, Steven Watanabe

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Why no non-null smart pointers?
by Ross MacGregor 29 Apr '14

29 Apr '14

I just created a very small smart pointer libary for our project. It will contain two types of shared pointers: SharedHandle and NullableSharedHandle. SharedHandle will be a shared pointer that cannot be null by ensuring a non-null construction while NullableSharedHandle will basically be a typedef for boost::shared_ptr. I firmly believe that code can be made more reliable by minimizing the use of nullable pointers. To this end, I think it is important that we start using non-null pointer types. Ideally the compiler would be able to understand a non-null pointer and catch bugs at compile time, but I think we can still improve things with a few runtime checks. If we make sure that a shared pointer is constructed with a non-null pointer and ban any reset() type methods, we guarentee that it points to something. This can be beneficial for the following reasons: 1. Any function that uses this type will no longer be burdened with precondition checks to make sure variables of this type are not null. 2. It's type is simply more explicit and better explains its function. 3. Moving the non-null check to the creation phase will reduce the possibility of encountering null pointer exceptions at runtime (assuming there are many more pointer references than constructor calls). So my little pointer library seems to make a lot of sense, but if so why hasn't this simple smart pointer variation made it into boost yet? Has this been discussed somewhere already? My search on non-null smart pointers is not revealing much discussion on the topic. Regards, Ross

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boost::optional -- updates for C++11 move semantics
by Diggory Hardy 10 Apr '14

10 Apr '14

Dear list, I wanted something like boost::optional, but with support for move- construction/assignment, so I went ahead and had a go at patching it. Attached is based on boost 1.49 (Ubuntu package). Could someone please review? I've not contributed to boost before. The changes at least aren't too complicated, but: 1) I'm not entirely sure if the move constructor (line 636) and swap function (line 1046) are implemented in the best way (also see line 279), 2) and I have no idea how is_[not_]reference_tag (line 486) works. 3) There should maybe also be a unit test. Of course, I am happy for my contributions to be published under the boost licence. Regards, Diggory

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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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C++03 and C++11 ABI compatibility for compiled libraries
by Andrey Semashev 24 Jan '14

24 Jan '14

Hi, I would like to raise the issue of binary compatibility of compiled Boost libraries between C++03 and C++11. I faced this problem with gcc on Linux, but other compilers and platforms may be affected as well. To summarize the problem: * Most, if not all Linux distributions build packages in C++03 mode. This is also the default in gcc. * Some Boost libraries conditionally use C++11 features in their binary interfaces (see [1] as an example). This makes C++03 and C++11 versions of the library binary incompatible. * Given that, users are unable to use C++11 in their code that uses Boost because of linker failures. I don't have the complete list of the offending C++11 features that break ABI, but it would seem that at least scoped enums and rvalue references are among them. Are there any more? I would like to hear opinions on the possible course of action to tackle this problem. Currently, I see 2 choices: 1. Avoid using C++11 features in binary interfaces. This may also mean avoiding STL types in binary interfaces, if they differ between C++03 and C++11 (I didn't verify that). This is my suggested hotfix solution for Boost.Filesystem [1] and the approach I took in Boost.Log. Obviously, this cripples code and error prone, but it keeps a single binary that can be used from any flavor of C++ on the user's side. 2. Compile different versions of Boost libraries, for each supported C++ version. The C++ version should be encoded into the library file names, so that different versions can coexist. This would require changes in Boost.Build and autolinking support code, but I think this would be a better long-term solution. Opinions? [1] https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/6779

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[Macro]Test Case grouping using Traits
by Hemanth Choudary M V (RBEI/ETA1) 13 Jan '14

13 Jan '14

Hello, I have observed that in native unit test framework(c++), there is an option to group test cases using attributes which are reflected as traits in the Test Explorer window in MS VS2012. Following is a an example of the same: BEGIN_TEST_METHOD_ATTRIBUTE(TestMethod3) TEST_OWNER(L"SuperMan") TEST_PRIORITY(2) TEST_METHOD_ATTRIBUTE(L"Category",L"Slow") END_TEST_METHOD_ATTRIBUTE() TEST_METHOD(TestMethod3) { Assert::AreEqual(2,6); } How can this be achieved via Boost Unit Test Library? Are there macros to achieve the same? Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best Regards, Hemanth Choudary MV RBEI/ETA1

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[filesystem] fix recur_dir_itr_imp::increment(system::error_code* ec) in 1.54.0
by claudio.bley＠gmail.com 19 Dec '13

19 Dec '13

Hi. What's happening to the filesystem library? It seems there's no progress on any tickets in the bug tracker? Referring to https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/6821#comment:5 Could we get this fix into 1.54.0, please? BTW, sorry for any confusion - I "managed" to comment on the wrong ticket... https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/5403 would've been more appropriate, I guess. Claudio -- Claudio

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RFC: edit_distance / edit_alignment library
by Erik Erlandson 18 Dec '13

18 Dec '13

Boost Community, I cooked up a library that provides a pair of functions: edit_distance() and edit_alignment(). The library currently lives here: https://github.com/erikerlandson/edit_distance Some short example programs are here: https://github.com/erikerlandson/edit_distance/tree/master/examples A few example expressions: // the edit distance (aka levenshtein distance) unsigned dist = edit_distance("abc", "bcd"); // using a custom cost function for insertion, deletion, substitution unsigned dist = edit_distance("abc", "bcd", custom_cost_function()); // accepts arbitrary sequences, ranges, range adaptors unsigned dist = edit_distance(as_vector("abc"), as_list("bcd") | boost::adaptors::reversed); // obtain the edit distance and the list of the edit operation codes (in output iterator) unsigned dist = edit_alignment("abc", "bcd", std::ostream_iterator<edit_opcode>(std::cout, "")).second; // adaptors to add edit operation costs and sequence elements to the edit operation output unsigned dist = acquire<elements>(acquire<costs>(edit_alignment))("abc", "bcd", std::ostream_iterator<boost::tuple<edit_opcode, unsigned, char, char> >(std::cout, "")).second; I'm interested in community feedback on whether these would be a useful addition to boost::algorithms. I envision these as the first additions to an eventually-larger library of other kinds of string distances, dynamic programming, and other algorithms for sequence alignment.

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[tweener] Doxygen documentation issues
by Julien Jorge 05 Nov '13

05 Nov '13

Hi, I am writing the documentation of Boost.Tweener and I encounter various difficulties. One of them is the generation of the class documentation with doxygen. It seems that it cannot extract the class and member documentation from .ipp files. I like to document the methods of my classes near the implementation. In Boost.Tweener, most of the class documentation is then in the .ipp files and I have written the following lines in the Jamfile.v2: import quickbook ; using boostbook ; using doxygen ; doxygen reference : [ glob ../../../boost/tweener/*.hpp ] [ glob ../../../boost/tweener/detail/*.hpp ] [ glob ../../../boost/tweener/detail/impl/*.ipp ] [ glob ../../../boost/tweener/detail/impl/easing/*.ipp ] [ glob ../../../boost/tweener/easing/*.hpp ] But when I try to build the documentation, I have the following error: boost_1_52_0/tools/build/v2/build/generators.jam:1085: in ensure-type from module generators error: target { ../../../boost/tweener/detail/impl/tweener_group.ipp. } has no type Moreover, if I remove the ipp files, the generation of the documentation does not fail but the doxygen documentation is not extracted, except for the private members. So, how can I also disable the extraction of the private members in the documentation? You can check the Jamfile.v2 in the git repository of the project: http://libclaw.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=libclaw/boost-tweener;a… Regards, Julien

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[mpl] integral_c [type_traits] integral_constant limits
by vicente.botet 21 Oct '13

21 Oct '13

Hi, I was testing Boost.Ratio with gcc-4.6 c++0x and I get some compile errors when instantiating std::cout << boost::mpl::integral_c< boost::intmax_t, boost::integer_traits<boost::intmax_t>::const_max >::value ; ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp: In instantiation of 'mpl_::integral_c<long long int, 0x7fffffffffffffffll>': ratio_io\ratio_io.pass.cpp:24:6: instantiated from here ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: warning: integer overflow in expression [-Woverflow] ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: error: '-0x8000000000000000ll' is not a valid template argument for type 'long long int' because it is a non-constant expression ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: error: '-0x8000000000000000ll' is not a constant expression integral_wrapper.hpp:72 contains typedef AUX_WRAPPER_INST( BOOST_MPL_AUX_STATIC_CAST(AUX_WRAPPER_VALUE_TYPE, (value + 1)) ) next; The same line pass with gcc-4.6, gcc-4.5 and gcc-4.5 c++0x with just a warning. ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp: In instantiation of 'mpl_::integral_c<long long int, 0x7fffffffffffffffll>': ratio_io\ratio_io.pass.cpp:23:6: instantiated from here ..\..\..\../boost/mpl/aux_/integral_wrapper.hpp:72:96: warning: integer overflow in expression [-Woverflow] integral_c is by integral_constant, but integral_constant doesn't needs next a prior types. This means that with the current implementation we can not use integral_constant with the max value of the type. Do you think this is a bug in integral_constant? Best, _____________________ Vicente Juan Botet Escribá http://viboes.blogspot.com/

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[accumulators] Help understanding implementation of weighted accumulators
by Gabriel Redner 02 Oct '13

02 Oct '13

Hi folks, I am trying to implement a weighted accumulator, but I'm having trouble understanding a few things about the existing ones. Looking at the implementation of weighted_sum, I see (weighted_sum.hpp:37): template<typename Args> weighted_sum_impl(Args const &args) : weighted_sum_( args[parameter::keyword<Tag>::get() | Sample()] * numeric::one<Weight>::value ) { } My questions are: - It's taking the first sample from the args and multiplying it by a weight of 1. Isn't this wrong - ignoring the real weight of this sample? Shouldn't this produce incorrect results? - I've never understood anyways how there can be an initial argument during construction of the accumulator. I haven't found any explanation in the docs beyond "Maybe there is an initial value in the argument pack". Maybe? How? Probably more questions later. Thanks, -Gabe

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[scope_exit] D-style scope(failure) and scope(success) in C++
by Evgeny Panasyuk 30 Sep '13

30 Sep '13

Hello all, D language has scope(exit), scope(success) and scope(failure) features - http://dlang.org/statement.html#ScopeGuardStatement : "... scope(exit) executes NonEmptyOrScopeBlockStatement when the scope exits normally or when it exits due to exception unwinding. scope(failure) executes NonEmptyOrScopeBlockStatement when the scope exits due to exception unwinding. scope(success) executes NonEmptyOrScopeBlockStatement when the scope exits normally. ..." Andrei Alexandrescu describes some of uses cases for scope(exit), scope(success), scope(failure) at his recent talk : http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Lang-NEXT/Lang-NEXT-2012/Three-Unlikely-Suc… There is Boost.ScopeExit library which emulates D's scope(exit) via BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT macro, but there are no analogues for D's scope(failure) and scope(success). Current alternative for these features is ScopeGuard idiom ( http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/More_C%2B%2B_Idioms/Scope_Guard , http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/generic-change-the-way-you-write-excepti/1844037… ). Boost.ScopeExit library itself suggests to use ScopeGuard - http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_51_0/libs/scope_exit/doc/html/scope_exit/al… : " Boost.ScopeExit is similar to scope(exit) feature built into the D programming language. A curious reader may notice that the library does not implement scope(success) and scope(failure) of the D language. Unfortunately, these are not possible in C++ because failure or success conditions cannot be determined by calling std::uncaught_exception (see Guru of the Week #47 for details about std::uncaught_exception and if it has any good use at all). However, this is not a big problem because these two D's constructs can be expressed in terms of scope(exit) and a bool commit variable (similarly to some examples presented in the Tutorial section). " I have made small library ( https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding#d-style-scope-guardsactions ) which supplies primitives (class unwinding_indicator, UNWINDING_AWARE_DESTRUCTOR macro) to determining when object destructor is called due to stack-unwinding or due to normal scope leaving. Currently it is implemented on top of platform-specific implementation of uncaught_exception_count function and tested on: {MSVC2005, MSVC2008, MSVC2010, MSVC2012, GCC4.1.2, GCC4.4.6, Clang3.2}x{x32, x64}x{default settings}. uncaught_exception_count is a function similar to std::uncaught_exception from standard library, but instead of boolean result it returns unsigned int showing current count of uncaught exceptions. Such primitives allow us to implement scope(success) and scope(failure) features in C++. I have made several proof-of-concepts: * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/scope_ac… * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/example_… * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/scope_gu… * https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/blob/master/examples/boost_sc… boost_scopes.cpp example shows usage of BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE and BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS: try { cout << "Case #1: stack unwinding" << endl; BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT(void) { cout << "exit" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT_END BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE(void) { cout << "failure" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE_END BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS(void) { cout << "success" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS_END throw 1; } catch(int){} { cout << "Case #2: normal exit" << endl; BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT(void) { cout << "exit" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_EXIT_END BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE(void) { cout << "failure" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE_END BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS(void) { cout << "success" << endl; } BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS_END } Output is: " Case #1: stack unwinding failure exit Case #2: normal exit success exit " Currently BOOST_SCOPE_FAILURE and BOOST_SCOPE_SUCCESS are implemented based on boost_1_51_0/boost/scope_exit.hpp by copy-paste and replace (just for proof-or-concept, of course it is possible solution with much less duplication). Semantically meaningful changes can be viewed as diff at https://github.com/panaseleus/stack_unwinding/commit/d5513404323490ea99d9b6… Before posting here, I made posts on several C++ forums, but unfortunately get only a few feedbacks regarding ScopeFailure and ScopeSuccess. What do you think? Thank you. P.S. Related discussion: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2010/09/171051.php Best Regards, Evgeny Panasyuk

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[thread] synchronized_value: value and move semantics
by Vicente J. Botet Escriba 24 Sep '13

24 Sep '13

Hi, boost::synchronized_value (not released yet [1][2][3]) is based on [4]. See below part of this paper adapted to the Boost.Thread interface. Currently boost::synchronized_value is in addition Copyable and Swappable. I was wondering if it is worth adding value and move semantics to synchronized_value. Making it EqualityComparable, LessThanComparable and Movable if the underlying type satisfy these requirements will allow to store them on a Boost.Container/C++11 container. Do you see something completely wrong with this addition? Has some of you had a need for this? Could you share the context? Best, Vicente [1] https://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/trunk/boost/thread/synchronized_value.hpp [2] https://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/trunk/libs/thread/example/synchronized_valu… [3] https://svn.boost.org/svn/boost/trunk/libs/thread/example/synchronized_pers… [4] "Enforcing Correct Mutex Usage with Synchronized Values" by Anthony Williams http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/enforcing-correct-mutex-usage-with-synch/2252002… ------------- [section The Problem with Mutexes] The key problem with protecting shared data with a mutex is that there is no easy way to associate the mutex with the data. It is thus relatively easy to accidentally write code that fails to lock the right mutex - or even locks the wrong mutex - and the compiler will not help you. std::mutex m1; int value1; std::mutex m2; int value2; int readValue1() { boost::lock_guard<boost::mutex> lk(m1); return value1; } int readValue2() { boost::lock_guard<boost::mutex> lk(m1); // oops: wrong mutex return value2; } Moreover, managing the mutex lock also clutters the source code, making it harder to see what is really going on. The use of synchronized_value solves both these problems - the mutex is intimately tied to the value, so you cannot access it without a lock, and yet access semantics are still straightforward. For simple accesses, synchronized_value behaves like a pointer-to-T; for example: boost::synchronized_value<std::string> value3; std::string readValue3() { return *value3; } void setValue3(std::string const& newVal) { *value3=newVal; } void appendToValue3(std::string const& extra) { value3->append(extra); } Both forms of pointer dereference return a proxy object rather than a real reference, to ensure that the lock on the mutex is held across the assignment or method call, but this is transparent to the user. [endsect] [/The Problem with Mutexes] [section Beyond Simple Accesses] The pointer-like semantics work very well for simple accesses such as assignment and calls to member functions. However, sometimes you need to perform an operation that requires multiple accesses under protection of the same lock, and that's what the synchronize() method provides. By calling synchronize() you obtain an strict_lock_ptr object that holds a lock on the mutex protecting the data, and which can be used to access the protected data. The lock is held until the strict_lock_ptr object is destroyed, so you can safely perform multi-part operations. The strict_lock_ptr object also acts as a pointer-to-T, just like synchronized_value does, but this time the lock is already held. For example, the following function adds a trailing slash to a path held in a synchronized_value. The use of the strict_lock_ptr object ensures that the string hasn't changed in between the query and the update. void addTrailingSlashIfMissing(boost::synchronized_value<std::string> & path) { boost::strict_lock_ptr<std::string> u=path.synchronize(); if(u->empty() || (*u->rbegin()!='/')) { *u+='/'; } } [endsect] [/Beyond Simple Accesses] [section Operations Across Multiple Objects] Though synchronized_value works very well for protecting a single object of type T, nothing that we've seen so far solves the problem of operations that require atomic access to multiple objects unless those objects can be combined within a single structure protected by a single mutex. One way to protect access to two synchronized_value objects is to construct a strict_lock_ptr for each object and use those to access the respective protected values; for instance: synchronized_value<std::queue<MessageType> > q1,q2; void transferMessage() { strict_lock_ptr<std::queue<MessageType> > u1 = q1.synchronize(); strict_lock_ptr<std::queue<MessageType> > u2 = q2.synchronize(); if(!u1->empty()) { u2->push_back(u1->front()); u1->pop_front(); } } This works well in some scenarios, but not all - if the same two objects are updated together in different sections of code then you need to take care to ensure that the strict_lock_ptr objects are constructed in the same sequence in all cases, otherwise you have the potential for deadlock. This is just the same as when acquiring any two mutexes. In order to be able to use the dead-lock free lock algorithms we need to use instead unique_lock_ptr, which is Lockable. synchronized_value<std::queue<MessageType> > q1,q2; void transferMessage() { unique_lock_ptr<std::queue<MessageType> > u1 = q1.unique_synchronize(boost::defer_lock); unique_lock_ptr<std::queue<MessageType> > u2 = q2.unique_synchronize(boost::defer_lock); boost::lock(u1,u2); // dead-lock free algorithm if(!u1->empty()) { u2->push_back(u1->front()); u1->pop_front(); } } [endsect] [/Operations Across Multiple Objects]

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[asio] Randomly having problems reading from the socket
by Torben Wiggerich 29 Jul '13

29 Jul '13

Hi all, I have some problems using the boost.asio.read for a TCP-socket. So far it works fine, but it randomly stops the transfer for at least 5 seconds. To resolve the error I used a simple synchronous server and client from the boost examples and modified it too send a larger amount of data. (307400 Bytes; this size comes from the program I'm trying to get run). On the client side I also changed the reading from the socket to read the complete data with boost.asio.read and transfer_all as argument. Both, server and client, measure the time for sending and reading to the socket and will give an error if it needs more than 1 second. Here is the sourcecode for the server: #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <boost/asio.hpp> #include <boost/date_time/posix_time/posix_time.hpp> using boost::asio::ip::tcp; using namespace boost::posix_time; int main() { try { boost::asio::io_service io_service; tcp::acceptor acceptor(io_service, tcp::endpoint(tcp::v4(), 8002)); tcp::socket socket(io_service); acceptor.accept(socket); unsigned char * array = new unsigned char[307400]; for (;;) { boost::system::error_code ignored_error; ptime startTime = microsec_clock::universal_time(); boost::asio::write(socket, boost::asio::buffer( array, 307400 ), boost::asio::transfer_all(), ignored_error); time_duration neededTime = microsec_clock::universal_time() - startTime; if ( neededTime.total_milliseconds() > 1000 ) { std::cout << "ERROR needed too much time: " << neededTime.total_milliseconds() << "ms" << std::endl; } } } catch (std::exception& e) { std::cerr << e.what() << std::endl; } return 0; } My client sourcecode: #include <iostream> #include <boost/array.hpp> #include <boost/asio.hpp> #include <boost/date_time/posix_time/posix_time.hpp> using boost::asio::ip::tcp; using namespace boost::posix_time; int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { try { if (argc != 2) { std::cerr << "Usage: client <host>" << std::endl; return 1; } boost::asio::io_service io_service; boost::asio::ip::tcp::endpoint endpoint( boost::asio::ip::address::from_string( argv[1] ), 8002 ); tcp::socket socket(io_service); boost::system::error_code error = boost::asio::error::host_not_found; socket.connect( endpoint, error ); if (error) throw boost::system::system_error(error); int counter = 0; unsigned char* array = new unsigned char[307400]; for (;;) { boost::system::error_code error; ptime startTime = microsec_clock::universal_time(); size_t len = boost::asio::read( socket, boost::asio::buffer( array, 307400 ), boost::asio::transfer_all(), error ); time_duration neededTime = microsec_clock::universal_time() - startTime; if ( error ) { printf( "body read error %s\n", error.message().c_str() ); } if ( counter % 5000 == 0 ) { std::cout << "passed: " << counter << "\r"; } ++counter; if ( neededTime.total_milliseconds() > 1000 ) { std::cout << "ERROR needed too much time: " << neededTime.total_milliseconds() << "ms" << std::endl; } } } catch (std::exception& e) { std::cerr << e.what() << std::endl; } return 0; } To reproduce the error just let it run for a while. It can take up to 30 minutes or even more... After a while it will produce the line: "ERROR needed too much time: 5007ms". Maybe with slightly different times, but all around 5 seconds. I tested it on different machines with Windows Vista and Seven. So am I'm doing sth. wrong? Is the reading from the socket correct? I'm using boost version 1.44. Kind regards Torben Wiggerich

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safe bool not safe enough ?
by John Maddock 28 Jul '13

28 Jul '13

Just discovered (oops!) that the so called safe bool ideom is not as safe as it appears, for example: class Testable { bool ok_; typedef void (Testable::*bool_type)() const; void this_type_does_not_support_comparisons() const {} public: explicit Testable(bool b=true):ok_(b) {} operator bool_type() const { return ok_==true ? &Testable::this_type_does_not_support_comparisons : 0; } }; Testable t(true); bool b = t; // Compiles OK - Ooops! Which is causing multiprecision to misbehave when used in conjunction with uBlas: https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/8292#comment:2 I guess making the conversion explicit in C++11 mode would help (I still need to test that), but is there a C++03 solution? Thanks, John.

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Status of various Boost initiatives?
by Robert Ramey 21 Jul '13

21 Jul '13

I'm trying to get a handle on the current state of the various boost migrations which have been underway. a) migration to GIT b) migration to CMake c) status of rypll when I try to track this down I find many dead links, repeated information. I also don't find some blogs I used to be able to find on these subjects. Anyone up to provide an current status snapshot? Robert Ramey

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A more convenient Variant visitation syntax
by Kevin Wu Won 19 Jul '13

19 Jul '13

While Boost Variant is a wonderful library that fills a genuine hole in the C++ language, it is not as nice to use as it could be. The "correct" way to unwrap a variant is to apply a static visitor, but this method carries a high syntactic burden because it needs the user to define a class (probably somewhere far away) just so they can "switch" on the type of the object stored in the variant. I came up with a solution where the handler functions can be specified inline with C++11 lambdas. Here's an example: boost::variant< int, std::string > u("hello world"); int result = match(u, [](int i) -> int { return i; }, [](const std::string & str) -> int { return str.length(); }); The `match` function accepts the variant followed by the handler functions. The functions can be specified in any order. It will fail to compile if the functions do not match the types of the variant, if the return types are not all the same, or if a non-unary function is supplied. This is C++11 only because it's quite pointless without lambda functions. I've tested it with gcc 4.7. It doesn't work on gcc 4.6, which can't handle the variadic templates. Here's the code: https://github.com/exclipy/inline_variant_visitor What do you think? This started out for me as an exercise to learn template metaprogramming and C++11, but hopefully, it can actually evolve into something useful.

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Git Modularization example Boost .gitattributes
by Niall Douglas 16 Jul '13

16 Jul '13

> > Shouldn't the repositories contain a .gitattributes file indicating the > > eol flavor to be used for text files where it has significance? > > Perhaps! I don't know anything about .gitattributes. Where can I find > out more? Dave, I can probably save you some work here with my "perfect" mirror of Boost's EOL and MIME type config into a .gitattributes with which I configured my subgit to mirror my git repo into Boost sandbox. Taken from https://github.com/ned14/TripleGit/blob/master/.gitattributes: * text=auto !eol svneol=native#text/plain *.gitattributes text svneol=native#text/plain # Scriptish formats *.bat text svneol=native#text/plain *.bsh text svneol=native#text/x-beanshell *.cgi text svneol=native#text/plain *.cmd text svneol=native#text/plain *.js text svneol=native#text/javascript *.php text svneol=native#text/x-php *.pl text svneol=native#text/x-perl *.pm text svneol=native#text/x-perl *.py text svneol=native#text/x-python *.sh eol=lf svneol=LF#text/x-sh configure eol=lf svneol=LF#text/x-sh # Image formats *.bmp binary svneol=unset#image/bmp *.gif binary svneol=unset#image/gif *.ico binary svneol=unset#image/ico *.jpeg binary svneol=unset#image/jpeg *.jpg binary svneol=unset#image/jpeg *.png binary svneol=unset#image/png *.tif binary svneol=unset#image/tiff *.tiff binary svneol=unset#image/tiff *.svg text svneol=native#image/svg%2Bxml # Data formats *.pdf binary svneol=unset#application/pdf *.avi binary svneol=unset#video/avi *.doc binary svneol=unset#application/msword *.dsp text svneol=crlf#text/plain *.dsw text svneol=crlf#text/plain *.eps binary svneol=unset#application/postscript *.gz binary svneol=unset#application/gzip *.mov binary svneol=unset#video/quicktime *.mp3 binary svneol=unset#audio/mpeg *.ppt binary svneol=unset#application/vnd.ms-powerpoint *.ps binary svneol=unset#application/postscript *.psd binary svneol=unset#application/photoshop *.rdf binary svneol=unset#text/rdf *.rss text svneol=unset#text/xml *.rtf binary svneol=unset#text/rtf *.sln text svneol=native#text/plain *.swf binary svneol=unset#application/x-shockwave-flash *.tgz binary svneol=unset#application/gzip *.vcproj text svneol=native#text/xml *.vcxproj text svneol=native#text/xml *.vsprops text svneol=native#text/xml *.wav binary svneol=unset#audio/wav *.xls binary svneol=unset#application/vnd.ms-excel *.zip binary svneol=unset#application/zip # Text formats .htaccess text svneol=native#text/plain *.bbk text svneol=native#text/xml *.cmake text svneol=native#text/plain *.css text svneol=native#text/css *.dtd text svneol=native#text/xml *.htm text svneol=native#text/html *.html text svneol=native#text/html *.ini text svneol=native#text/plain *.log text svneol=native#text/plain *.mak text svneol=native#text/plain *.qbk text svneol=native#text/plain *.rst text svneol=native#text/plain *.sql text svneol=native#text/x-sql *.txt text svneol=native#text/plain *.xhtml text svneol=native#text/xhtml%2Bxml *.xml text svneol=native#text/xml *.xsd text svneol=native#text/xml *.xsl text svneol=native#text/xml *.xslt text svneol=native#text/xml *.xul text svneol=native#text/xul *.yml text svneol=native#text/plain boost-no-inspect text svneol=native#text/plain CHANGES text svneol=native#text/plain COPYING text svneol=native#text/plain INSTALL text svneol=native#text/plain Jamfile text svneol=native#text/plain Jamroot text svneol=native#text/plain Jamfile.v2 text svneol=native#text/plain Jamrules text svneol=native#text/plain Makefile* text svneol=native#text/plain README text svneol=native#text/plain TODO text svneol=native#text/plain # Code formats *.c text svneol=native#text/plain *.cpp text svneol=native#text/plain *.h text svneol=native#text/plain *.hpp text svneol=native#text/plain *.ipp text svneol=native#text/plain *.tpp text svneol=native#text/plain *.jam text svneol=native#text/plain *.java text svneol=native#text/plain Hope that's useful. Niall --- Opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of BlackBerry Inc.

2 4

Git Modularization hiccups
by Beman Dawes 15 Jul '13

15 Jul '13

* "git clone --recursive http://github.com/boostorg/boost modular-boost" is mostly working fine here (on Win7) but is producing one set of error messages: Cloning into 'libs/assign'... fatal: reference is not a tree: 57ec5d1534810090649b18c88e66a46f48cdcf1c ... Unable to checkout '57ec5d1534810090649b18c88e66a46f48cdcf1c' in submodule path 'libs/assign' The remaining hiccups are in the root directory, comparing trunk to master: * boost.css is missing content from revisions 36243 and 53553. * boost-build.jam has different comments and history. Something is totally whacky. * boostcpp.py contents are the same, but the trunk file has Unix line endings, the master file has Windows line endings. * Same problem with bootstrap.sh. IIRC, it is important that the .sh files have the Unix line endings. * c++boost.gif not present in trunk, present in master. * index.html missing in master. * Jamfile.v2 and Jamroot.jam not present in trunk, present in master. * INSTALL missing in master. * LICENSE_1_0.txt has Unix line endings in trunk, Windows line endings in master. * project-config.jam missing in master. * rst.cc missing in master. * README.txt not present in trunk, present in master. HTH, --Beman

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[filesystem] Please take care of #8706
by Antony Polukhin 09 Jul '13

09 Jul '13

Hi, There is a ticket https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/8706 and patch in it that fixes compilation of Boost.Filesystem under Android NDK. Tested patch under latest NDK and it works well. Fix is required to start regression tests for droid platform. -- Best regards, Antony Polukhin

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