June 2015 - Boost - lists.preview.boost.org

[status] How should boost/status master be updated?
by Adam Wulkiewicz 11 Jun '15

11 Jun '15

Hi, Some time ago I prepared a PR for develop version of boost/status. Now I'd like to propagate the changes to master. How should I do that? I saw that there are some changes made only in develop and other only in master. Some commits were cherry-picked. What should be the practice in this case? Shouldn't status be made a separate module? It'd greately simplify the synchronization of branches. Regards, Adam

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[boost.lockfree] spsc_queue read/write_available
by Philip Bennefall 11 Jun '15

11 Jun '15

Hi all, I am debugging a crash that I am getting inside of the pop method in spsc_queue from boost.lockfree. I am not sure exactly what is happening yet, but I do have one question. I call read_available and write_available a few times, and am wondering why read_available can only be called from the producer thread and why write_available can only be called from the consumer thread? Wouldn't it make sense to call read_available from the consumer, and write_available from the producer? Why is it the other way around? Currently I call write_available from the thread that pops, and read_available from the thread that pushes. Did I interpret the documentation correctly? If so, some clarifications would be much appreciated. Thanks! Kind regards, Philip Bennefall

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sourceforge and release hosting
by Adam Walling 11 Jun '15

11 Jun '15

Should releases be hosted somewhere other than sourceforge? I've ran across this regarding boost twice this week, and I'm sure we are all well aware of the history of problems that sourceforge has been accumulating. Personally I think twice now every time I happen upon sourceforge, and despite being a source target than binary release, I can't help but be disturbed by these recent events. And I certainly don't want boost associated. Are there any strong feelings among us here regarding this?

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[BestPracticeHandbook] Try the library online
by Krzysztof Jusiak 10 Jun '15

10 Jun '15

Hi, I've recently added a new badge (try boost.di | online) to proposed boost.di library. It uses Wandbox (awesome) facilities to check the library using online compiler (Wandbox supports newest gcc/clang). IMHO this approach is really useful for reviews and new users, since they don't have to install anything, just click the link and its done. They can experiment and then if they like it, clone the library and explore it more. You can check the badge here: http://krzysztof-jusiak.github.io/di/cpp14/boost/libs/di/doc/html And, for inpatients, direct link to online compiler with the library: http://melpon.org/wandbox/permlink/O3ABWKU3VBV3WG8J Let me know, what do you think. Cheers, Kris

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[Config] Support for switching between std:: and boost:: equivalents.
by John Maddock 10 Jun '15

10 Jun '15

There is a pull-request for Config to provide support for switching between boost:: and std:: library equivalents: https://github.com/boostorg/config/pull/63 My questions are: * Is this the right approach? And, * Is Boost.Config the right place for it? Thanks for your comments, John.

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Interest in B-Tree and B+-Tree Implementation?
by Timo Bingmann 10 Jun '15

10 Jun '15

Hello people, I want to ask if there is an interest in adding an in-memory B+-Tree container implementation that I wrote some time ago: https://github.com/bingmann/stx-btree http://panthema.net/2007/stx-btree/ It emulates the std::set/map/multiset/multimap interfaces as far as possible (there are some unavoidable minor exceptions). And since I keep telling my collegues to stop using std::map for bigger instances, I think adding it to Boost would be a good idea. So ... I could clean up my old implementation, add C++11/Boost move semantics, use of uninitialized objects, boostify various things, etc, etc, and then things should be pretty fine. I also have an idea to modify/fork the implementation to create a B-tree (non-plus) container, which should be a bit slower, but provide an interface even closer to std::map (only remaining unavoidable incompatibility would be with iterator invalidation). My main question before starting this is whether it is a better idea to add it to Ion's existing Container library, or to add it as a separate "library" under Boost like the existing circular_buffer, which is pretty old. Apparently libraries have gotten bigger over Boost's life. So which variant would be better? The "Container" library seems to be more targeted at reimplementing STL containers with new features, and simple new containers, not complexer ones? But it should still be a good match. In the incubator I found the "STL Extensions" submission, which appears to be dead. It aims to provide "augmented array based B+ trees", which is different from the usual trees where nodes are dynamically allocated. Best Regards, Timo Bingmann

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[regression] Displaying test categories in the regression matrix
by Adam Wulkiewicz 09 Jun '15

09 Jun '15

Some time ago I defined the categories for tests in Geometry in the explicit-failures-markup.xml file in develop: https://github.com/boostorg/boost/pull/80/files What I'd like to achieve is a matrix similar to the Chrono's one: http://www.boost.org/development/tests/develop/developer/chrono.html However after merging the PR there are no categories in the Geometry matrix. Am I doing it in the correct way? Which version of the explicit-failures-markup.xml is used by the report program, from the develop or master branch? Or maybe must the file be manually placed somewhere? Regards, Adam

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[hana]Either generalization & missing variant
by Larry Evans 09 Jun '15

09 Jun '15

The page: http://ldionne.com/hana/structboost_1_1hana_1_1Either.html contains: An Either contains either a left value or a right value, both of which may have different data types. An Either containing a left value a is represented as left(a), and an Either containing a right value b is represented as right(b). which makes anyone familiar with boost::variant to think that hana's Either is simply a binary boost::variant, and left(a) ~=~ variant<A,B>(a) right(b) ~=~ variant<A,B>(b) where ~=~ means some sort of similarity. However, since the left and right functions only have 1 argument and no template arguments, they can't produce something like variant<A,B> where the left and right types are known. IOW, it seems that left and right are just wrapper's around the types. Looking at the code, the wrappers, _left and _right are defined here: https://github.com/ldionne/hana/blob/master/include/boost/hana/either.hpp#L… https://github.com/ldionne/hana/blob/master/include/boost/hana/either.hpp#L… But why should Either be limited just to _left and _right wrappers. Why not provide wrapper's tagged by some enumerable? For example, something like this: template < typename X , typename Enumerable=unsigned , Enumerable tag=Tag() > struct _tagged //instead of _left and _right : operators::adl { X value; . . . template <typename... F> constexpr decltype(auto) go(F...&& f) const& { return (hana::arg<unsigned(tag)>(f...))(value); } . . . }; This would be more general than the binary Either. In addition, _tagged could be used elsewhere. For example, it could be used in a multiple inheritance implementation of tuple. _tagged is already present in a more general form, in fusion: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_39_0/libs/fusion/doc/html/fusion/support/pa… where: _tagged<X,0> ~=~ fusion::pair<int_<0>,X> The obvious advantage of Either is that it doesn't require memory use equal to the max of the components when the component with the minimum size is used. IOW, left(a) only requires sizeof(A) and right(b) only requires sizeof(B). OTOH, Either, or the generalization described above, can't be used where a true variant is needed, for example, in spirit's attributes for the alternative parser. And this brings up another question. Although hana has a tuple, it doesn't have a variant. Is there any reason for excluding variant from hana? -regards, Larry

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[metaparse] Review period starts May 25th and ends June 7th - ongoing
by Christophe Henry 09 Jun '15

09 Jun '15

Dear all, The review of the metaparse library started last Monday. Please consider taking the time to review it and post comments or reviews on this list. Thanks, Christophe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear all, The review of the Metaparse library starts next Monday, May 25th and ends June 7th. Metaparse was written by Abel Sinkovics. Metaparse is a parser generator library for template metaprograms. The purpose of this library is to support the creation of parsers that parse at compile time. This library is intended to be used for embedded domain specific language creation for C++ and can help libraries provide a better interface. It is similar to Boost.Spirit, however while parsers built with Spirit parse at run-time, parsers built with Metaparse parse at compile-time. It makes it possible for library authors to provide an interface that follows the common notation of the problem domain of the library. (eg. SQL queries, grammars, etc written in their common notation instead of similar-looking C++ expressions). For example there is a (yet incomplete) interface for Boost.Spirit that makes it possible to write MPLLIBS_REGEX("^[abcd][3-8]\\.foo$") instead of bos >> set[as_xpr('a')|'b'|'c'|'d'] >> range('3','8') >> '.' >> 'f' >> 'o' >> 'o' >> eos and make the parser built with Metaparse generate the latter expression from the former one. (It can be found here: https://github.com/istvans/mpllibs/tree/master/libs/xlxpressive) Since the library is based on template metaprogramming, the DSLs can be used for type validation as well. This is demonstrated by the type-safe printf implementation ( http://abel.web.elte.hu/mpllibs/safe_printf/index.html) It type-checks the arguments of a printf call based on the format string and has zero runtime overhead compared to unchecked printf. Parsers can be constructed in a declarative manner and (even though this is template metaprogramming based) remain readable. The implementation reflects the grammar it parses (with additional elements for semantic actions). Even though the library requires the parser author to write template metaprograms, the development of parsers is well supported by tools like Metashell and MDB. An important aspect of parsers (built with this library or another one) is error reporting for invalid input. The library offers tools for the parser authors to be able to provide useful error messages in case of parsing errors. Here is an example error report by a parser built with Metaparse (the parser can be found in the Getting Started guide of the library): ..... x__________________PARSING_FAILED__________________x<1, 5, unpaired<1, 1, literal_expected<')'>>> .... It is an error report letting the developer know that a closing paren is missing at line 1, column 5 and the unclosed opening paren is in line 1, column 1. Metaparse can be downloaded from Github: https://github.com/sabel83/mpllibs/tree/master/mpllibs/metaparse And a very complete tutorial: http://abel.web.elte.hu/mpllibs/metaparse/getting_started.html The tutorial also offers the nice feature of a link to metashell for quick-starting trying out the library: http://abel.web.elte.hu/shell/metashell.html Boost.Msm v3 also implements a new compile-time strings based front-end called eUML2 to demonstrate the power of the library and the conciseness and expressiveness it allows. Please have a look at the documentation: https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://raw.githubusercontent.com/boostorg/m… Everybody on this list is invited to participate in this formal review. I hope to see your review of Metaparse, including your vote on acceptance, and I welcome your participation in the ensuing discussions on the Boost developers' mailing list. Please always include in your review a vote as to whether the library should be accepted into Boost. Additionally please consider giving feedback on the following general topics: - What is your evaluation of the design? - What is your evaluation of the implementation? - What is your evaluation of the documentation? - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? - Did you try to use the library? - With what compiler? - Did you have any problems? - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? Regards, Christophe Review Manager

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Github and forks
by Edward Diener 08 Jun '15

08 Jun '15

My use case is: I want to create a Github PR request against a Boost submodule repository. I then want to create a separate Github PR request against the same Boost submodule repository. I understand the Github mechanism of forking a repository and creating a PR request. For some reason which I do not understand Github will not allow their online forking mechanism to fork the same repository more than once to different names within a user account. In other words if I fork a Boost submodule repository to my user account, rename the repository, and then fork the same Boost repository to my user account again it will just update the renamed repository rather than create a new forked repository again. Considering that Github allows any repository you can find there to be forked to your user account, can anybody think of why Github will not allow the same repository to be forked twice to different repositories ? Of course I can get around this Github forking limitation by creating a new Github repository in myn user account, cloning an existing Github repository locally, and then pushing that cloned repository to my new Github repository. That will create two different repositories off of the same Github repository in my user account. But in this case I can't use the online PR mechanism on this second repository against the original Github repository.

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