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

Making the Windows binaries 'official'
by Tom Kent 15 Aug '15

15 Aug '15

<history> After the boostpro.com organization dissolved, there was never an official place to go to get pre-built binaries for the releases. Some random components were made available on the sourceforge download page and I had been hosting them on my own website (http://boost.teeks99.com) since I started building them around the release of 1.37. A couple years ago, before the release of 1.54, I asked the community if they would like my builds to be hosted on the sourceforge site, and the answer was positive: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2013/04/202460.php Since the 1.54 release, I've generally been uploading the windows binaries based on the RCs and enabling the downloads just a few minutes after the release notice goes out. </history> I would now like to propose that we make these libraries an official part of each Boost release. I don't think this entails much, just the following: 1) Have the release team coordinate with me to ensure that the binaries are ready before announcing the release. 2) Include a link to them in the release announcement. 3) Link to them from the website. It would also be good to get others who can run the scripts to perform the build, if I am someday unable to do this. The biggest hurdle here is having a (virtual) machine with all six versions of visual studio on it. Is this something the community would be in favor of? I know that many of the people on these lists don't use windows and if they do are generally capable of building the windows binaries themselves, however there is a large group out there that prefers to just get the installer for them (like they do for other projects like Qt, wxWidgets, etc). Thoughts? Tom Kent

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[job] exec job-graphs in a NUMA env (was a thread pool that allows recursive calls)
by Oliver Kowalke 15 Aug '15

15 Aug '15

This library is related to the posting 'a thread pool that allows recursive calls' (http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2015/06/223426.php) e.g. the library solves the many-dependent-jobs problem. boost.job is a derivative work of boost.task (which was published in 2008, the code is refactored and now split into boost.context, boost.coroutine2/boost.fiber and boost.job). boost.job provides a framework for asynchronous execution of job-graphs (a job is a small unit of code that can be executed independently and parallel, e.g. it's a fain-grained work item) of arbitrary dependency, e.g. solving the many-dependent-jobs problem (M: worker threads, N: jobs waiting for other jobs; M << N). Each (logical) processor of a dedicated processor set (configurable) gets a worker-thread assigned. Each worker-thread runs a fiber-pool (launch policy is customizable). A submitted job is always executed by a worker-fiber. While using boost.fiber jobs are scheduled cooperatively so that a job can yield to other jobs during its execution. Jobs can be synchronized via primitives like mutex's, conditions, barriers and channels (message exchange) from boost.fiber without blocking the worker-thread. Fibers provide a fast context switch. boost.job supports to inspect the NUMA topology (e.g. which logical processors are online, and which processors share L1/L2/L3 cache). This information can be used to select a appropriate processor for a job. For a fast access to job related data, boost.job provides functions and classes to allocate memory on NUMA nodes (processors of a NUMA node share cache and have a faster access to its associated memory bank than processors of other nodes.). source: https://github.com/olk/boost-job documentation: http://olk.github.io/libs/job/doc/html/

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Re: [boost] Build Error VS14 + Intel 15.0 (Update 4, the latest)
by degski 15 Aug '15

15 Aug '15

Changing intel-win.jam, line 476 (boost 1.59.0 rc2) from: .iclvars-15.0-supported-vcs = "12.0 11.0 10.0 9.0" ; to: .iclvars-15.0-supported-vcs = "14.0 12.0 11.0 10.0 9.0" ; solves the problem.

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Master branch is open for changes
by Marshall Clow 14 Aug '15

14 Aug '15

The release has been tagged, and library maintainers are free to merge to release again. Thanks to everyone for their cooperation. -- Marshall

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Boost 1.59.0 has been released
by Marshall Clow 14 Aug '15

14 Aug '15

Release 1.59.0 of the Boost C++ Libraries is now available. These open-source libraries work well with the C++ Standard Library, and are usable across a broad spectrum of applications. The Boost license encourages both commercial and non-commercial use. This release contains two new libraries and numerous enhancements and bug fixes for existing libraries. New Libraries * Convert: An extendible and configurable type-conversion framework, from Vladimir Batov. * Coroutine2: from Oliver Kowalke For details, including download links, see http://www.boost.org/users/news/version_1.59.0 You can also download directly from SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.59.0/ To install this release on your system, see http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/release/more/getting_started/index.html Thanks, --The Boost release team Vladimir Prus Rene Rivera Marshall Clow Eric Niebler Daniel James Beman Dawes

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[filesystem] proposal: treat reparse files as regular files
by Paul Harris 14 Aug '15

14 Aug '15

Hi all, -- Proposal -- tl;dr : I propose that we treat all non-symlink "reparse_files" as "regular_files". If the boost library user wants to do something special with these plain reparse files, they should use alternative means. But typically they are supposed to be treated as regular files. This means we could drop the "reparse_file" enum, or continue to use it for a special-case whats_my_real_status() function. --- Motivation --- Windows Server 2012 uses reparse points to implement deduplification. Those files should be treated as regular files in all circumstances. Currently, they are not classed as "regular" files, so fs::copy() will skip those files, and library-user code written to list files based on official examples will ignore all dedup'd files. This is causing serious and latent problems at the user end, because deduping only happens occasionally after X days, and users cannot easily check if a file is dedup'd (they look just like regular files). --- Real life example --- Another example of reparse use is the "Symantec Enterprise Vault" (version 10), which I found running on one site. It replaces files on the server with reparse-point files. FSUTIL REPARSEPOINT QUERY filename.txt shows the contents of the reparse buffer, which is a URL to an internal HTTP server. The url points to a .asp link with a bunch of codes and dates to identify the file in the server. Copy-pasting that URL into a webbrowser allows you to directly download the file via the webbrowser, which is pretty neat I suppose. In this case, the reparsed-files in Windows Explorer all have grey X crosses on their file icon. If you "type" them (via cmd) or open them, the icon loses the grey cross and the file is no longer a reparse point file. My software refused to read the files because they were "not regular files". Once I adjusted the boost code (described below), my software saw them as regular and opened the files. The file icons lost the grey cross. SO it seems that the file server automatically downloads and replaces the files with the stored content on demand, and the file reading client program should really just treat these files as normal files. --- Short logic --- reparse files (that are not symlinks) should almost always be treated as plain files. They are a mechanism for MS file servers to store files in clever ways, but the client should not care and just read/write them as if they were normal files. This is different to all the other "other" files which can't be treated like normal files: block, character, fifo, socket, unknown So, reparse files should not be grouped with the "other" file types. They are also NOT symlinks, and should not be treated as symlinks (which would require special decisions for copying, or querying the status, or checking if the target still exists). --- What are reparse files --- I did some reading, if I understand correctly: Reparse points give drivers (on the server) a chance to get data through some other specialised means (eg query from a cluster store). They are processed by the server, not the client, so clients should treat reparse data as opaque data. EXCEPT for symlink reparse files. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd541667.aspx quote:"The following reparse tags, with the exception of IO_REPARSE_TAG_SYMLINK, are processed on the server and are not processed by a client after transmission over the wire. Clients should treat associated reparse data as opaque data." It seems like the rest of the tags are used for connecting files to other types of storage (eg long term storage, cluster storage). Clients may need to do something special with SOME reparse point files, IF the client cares about how long the file read may take. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365505(v=vs.85).… quote: "Most applications should take special actions for files that have been moved to long-term storage, if only to notify the user that it may take a while to retrieve the file." --- Changes required --- Option 1: change is_regular_file() to return true where type==reparse_file I don't like this option, as library-users could be checking the type directly instead of using is_regular_file(). Option 2: These functions return reparse_file: fs::file_type query_file_type(const path& p, error_code* ec) file_status status(const path& p, error_code* ec) file_status symlink_status(const path& p, error_code* ec) They should instead return regular_file instead. --- How to test with dedup files --- Creating dedup'd files is a feature only available on Windows Server 2012, I believe, although Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10 clients all can read dedup files. Here is how I created a windows server to test with (for free!) on a demo Azure cloud server. I have one working, so if anyone would like to use it for their testing, let me know. Step one: follow this blog article: http://blogs.technet.com/b/tommypatterson/p/azureservertrial.aspx once the machine was "running" I clicked Connect at the bottom. That gave me an .rdp file which in theory I could use with rdesktop, but it uses a DNS name that was only just created, so that didn't work. When you click the name of the server in the list, it shows the public IP on the right.. and the port then you can do this $ rdesktop that.ip.addr:port But only if you have the latest rdesktop AND you have set up kerberos something-something. Instead I found a windows computer and used remote desktop from there. --- Once inside, in the "Server Manager --> Dashboard" window on the screen, click "Add Roles" then go next next until "Server Roles" expand "File and Storage services" , "File and iSCSI" , and tick "Data Deduplication" Then next next etc and Install. Wait a bit... and its done. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/configuring-windows-server-8-d… --- Continuing on that webpage... Time to enable dedup. There is a temp disk D: so lets enable there. Method 1... I did this and then went to method 2... Start PowerShell, type: "Enable-DedupVolume D:" Method 2... in that same Dashboard, hit the 4th button (File and Storage Services) Then Volumes --> Disks click Volume 1 at the top, and then right click D: at the bottom --> Configure Dedup. To try and accelerate this puppy, I set the "age to dedup" to 0 days. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/windows-server-2012-deduplicat… --- Time to make something to dedup. We'll just duplicate the warning.txt file that exists on D: In powershell: PS> D: PS> $file = Get-Content DATALOSS_WARNING_README.txt Then, do these 2 commands a bunch of times until "big.txt" gets to say 6MB PS> Add-Content big.txt $file PS> $file = Get-Content big.txt Then use windows explorer (or other) to make a dozen copies of big.txt Copy c:\windows\explorer.exe to D: to give it something to dedup Go to D: and then copy-paste explorer.exe a dozen times. In PowerShell, type: PS> Update-DedupStatus -Volume D: PS> Start-DedupStatus -Type Optimization -Volume D: and then wait for it to finish. you can track its progress with: PS> Get-DedupJob PS> Get-DedupStatus -Volume D: --- So, once its deduped, you check. PS> FSUTIL REPARSEPOINT QUERY big.txt you should see that its a reparse point with that 0x800etc0013 code. Copy-paste big.txt to big2.txt and check it with the query, and it should tell you big2 is NOT a reparse point. NOW you have some files to test the boost library... You can't zip them up (they lose the dedup tag), you have to run boost binaries ON the computer in the sky. --- Finish --- Thanks for reading, Paul

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[COre] Pull request for enable_if_type
by Joel FALCOU 13 Aug '15

13 Aug '15

Hi, I just refurbished and pushed an old patch adding the enable_if_type SFINAE utility to core. https://github.com/boostorg/core/pull/15 I tried to keep it simple and make the doc proper. This utility has been laying around various boost library and was "reinvetned" in bosot.SIMD. I think it's worth being in core so code duplication is kept to a minimum. Comments welcome

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[spirit] 1.59.0 rc3: compiler warning in real_impl.hpp
by Tobias Loew 13 Aug '15

13 Aug '15

Hi, with MSVC 11, 32-bit build I get a compiler warning in boost\spirit\home\qi\numeric\detail\real_impl.hpp : 287 warning C4244: '=' : conversion from 'unsigned __int64' to 'double', possible loss of data since I usually comile with warnings-as-errors this broke my build. Tobias -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/spirit-1-59-0-rc3-compiler-warning-in-re… Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Any interest in a M:N green threading library?
by Xu Chen 13 Aug '15

13 Aug '15

Just cleanup some codes I wrote before, there is a M:N green threading library built on top of Boost.Thread and Boost.Coroutine, conceptually it works like goroutines in Go and (once existed) green threads in Rust. With some refinements, it now supports all C++11/14 threading standard, along with some extensions exist in Boost.Thread such as thread_group and chainable futures. It can be integrated with Boost.ASIO, all ASIO async functions can be used as sync ones in green threads, similar to Boost.ASIO/Boost.Coroutine integration. Also it has some facilities to communicate with foreign threads, can by used to integrate with external libs such as database drivers. The code can be found at https://github.com/windoze/boost.green_thread I don't know much about boostbook tools so the documents are kind of crippled, but I'll improve it if needed. Regards, Chen Xu

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Re: [boost] [build] Problems with VC14 and MSPDB140.DLL (was: [testing][teeks] MSVC-14 errors about MSPDB140.DLL)
by Adam Merz 12 Aug '15

12 Aug '15

Andrey Semashev <andrey.semashev <at> gmail.com> writes: > > I created a Connect ticket about it: > > https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/1651822/incorr ect-mspdb140-dll-version-picked-in-x86-x64-cross-tools-environment > This ticket appears to be set to private; would you mind editing it to public visibility so that we may upvote it? Regards,

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