May 2017 - Boost - lists.preview.boost.org

[yap] Re-announcing Yap
by Zach Laine 23 Feb '18

23 Feb '18

I posted 2-3 months ago about Yap, an expression template library I've written that I intend to propose for Boost. This is just a reminder that the library exists, and where to find it. I'm giving a talk about it at C++Now 2017, and some time after that I intend to submit it to the queue. Louis Dionne has offered to serve as review manager when the time comes. You can find the main repo on GitHub: https://github.com/tzlaine/yap And online docs are here: https://tzlaine.github.io/yap Zach

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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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[Safe Numerics] Review
by John Maddock 09 Jul '17

09 Jul '17

OK, here's my review of Robert's library. By way of something different, I've tried to not read the docs (though I ended up scanning them in the end) and just tried to use the library. Here's what I've found: 1) Using: safe<int>(-1) & 1 I get a hard assert failure at safe_base_operations.hpp:1373. I'm assuming that this is a mistake, and the usual error handlers should be called? Bitwise or has the same issue. More tests required ;) 2) I'm not sure if this is an msvc issue but in: constexpr safe_base operator~() The static assert is triggered for *unsigned types* and not for signed. Even if this is a compiler issue, it indicates a missing test case or two. 3) If I assign a float to an integer, then I get the error: "conversion of integer to float loses precision" which isn't quite what you meant to say. More particularly, for float conversions I would expect: * Conversion from a float holding an integer value that's within the range of the target type to always succeed. * Conversion from a float holding a non-integral value to conditionally succeed (with trunction) depending on the policy in effect. * Conversion *to* a float may also fail if the integer is outside the range of the float (no checking may be required if the number of bits in the integer is less than the number of bits in the float). 4) Is constexpr arithmetic supposed to be supported? I tried: constexpr boost::numeric::safe<int> j = 0; constexpr boost::numeric::safe<int> k = 3; constexpr boost::numeric::safe<int> l = j + k; Which generates an internal compiler error for msvc, and for gcc-5.3 I get: ../../../include/safe_base_operations.hpp:332:35: error: call to non-constexpr function ‘void boost::numeric::dispatch(const boost::numeric::checked_result<R>&) [with EP = boost::numeric::throw_exception; R = int]’ dispatch<exception_policy>(r); Similarly if I try to add a literal to a safe<int>. Again as the tests all pass, so I'm assuming they're missing constexpr tests? 5) What is the purpose of class safe_literal? constepxr initialization seems to work just fine without it? 6) In the docs, the example of using error handler dispatch is nonesense (top of page 41)? 7) Related to the above, I see the need to be able to define your own primitives which behave just like yours. The example I have is for bit-scan-left/right which has as precondition that the argument is non-zero, but there are other bit-fiddling operations (bit count etc) which some folks may require. A "cookbook" example would be good. 8) In the tests, you have an undocumented function "log" in the library. Not sure if this is intended to be part of the API or not, but IMO it's misnamed. ilog2 seems to a semi-standard name for this. 9) By way of testing the libraries performance I hooked it into the Millar-Rabin primality test in the multiprecision lib (test attached, it counts how many probable primes there are below 30000000), here are the times for msvc: Testing type unsigned: time = 17.6503 seconds count = 1857858 Testing type safe<unsigned>: time = 83.5055 seconds count = 1857858 Testing type 32-bit cpp_int: time = 36.9026 seconds count = 1857858 and for GCC-MINGW-5.3.0: Testing type unsigned: time = 17.1037 seconds count = 1857858 Testing type unsigned: time = 18.4377 seconds count = 1857858 Testing type unsigned: time = 21.0592 seconds count = 1857858 I'm surprised by the difference in times between msvc and gcc, also deeply impressed that there is effectively no performance penalty with GCC (I was expecting there should be some!) 10) I don't find the scope of the library over-broad, in fact I probably find it about right wrt the policies etc. 11) There were a few traits and such that it would be nice to have, the problem as ever, is what to call them and where to put them: * A trait for extracting the underlying type of a safe<> - use case for example where you enable_if a function on is_safe so don't have the template argument list to safe<>. * Do we need a function for extracting the underlying type of a safe<>? Or is casting to the underlying type optimal? Actually, maybe having a function would negate the need for the above trait, as we could just write 'auto x = mysafe.value();' ? * Do we need traits equivalent to is_signed/is_unsigned/make_signed/make_unsigned? My gut feeling is yes we do, the issue is what to call them, and where to put them - we're not allowed to specialize the type_traits versions (either boost or std), but we would need a central "one true trait" version that can be specialized by other libraries as well (Multiprecision for example). We've backed ourselves into a corner over this I fear! 12) When calling boost::integer::gcd/lcm the sub-optimal(?) non-binary versions are called for safe<> - you might want to look into seeing what traits need to be defined to ensure that the same version as the underlying type is called. Those are all the issues I can see for now... in conclusion, as for whether the library should be accepted, yes I believe it should be, modulo the issues above. Regards, John. --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com

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[CallableTraits] Review results
by Louis Dionne 07 Jul '17

07 Jul '17

Dear Boost, I am pleased to announce that the CallableTraits library is CONDITIONALLY ACCEPTED into Boost. I counted the following formal reviews: - Bruno Dutra: Yes - Emil Dotchevski: Yes - John P. Fletcher: Yes - Klemens Morgenstern: Yes - Peter Dimov: Yes - Zach Laine: Yes The following people also participated to the review by providing informal feedback: - Edward Diener - Gavin Lambert - Niall Douglas - Paul Fultz II - Tim Song I also based my decision on previous experience I've had using the library, and some issues we faced in the Standard Committee where we could have used CallableTraits. I'd like to thank everyone who participated to the review for their feedback, and also Barrett Adair for his submission. The following lists the conditions for acceptance, and also summarizes the general feedback received during the review. GitHub issues are leveraged to make the tracking of these comments easier. Below, whenever I refer to #XYZ, the corresponding ticket can be found at https://github.com/badair/callable_traits/issues/XYZ To see all the issues that were discussed during the review, you can search for tickets labeled with `review` on GitHub (please allow some time for Barrett to update the new issues I just filed): https://github.com/badair/callable_traits/issues?page=1&q=+label%3Areview Conditions for acceptance ------------------------- The following are points that must be addressed for the library to be accepted. Once all of the associated GitHub issues are closed, I ask that the author post to this list with links to the closed issues. Unless major problems (having to do with the closed issues) are raised at that time, the library will be automatically accepted into Boost, no additional review required. - The library needs to clearly document the advantages of CallableTraits over FunctionTypes. Concrete examples must be given (at least one, preferably two). See #117. - The level of C++ conformance required for the whole library needs to be clearly stated in the documentation. Individual components should only document divergences from that base level of conformance. The current state of things is quite confusing for users. See #118. - The "algorithmic" parts of the library must be removed, since they are out of scope. This has already been partly done in issue #114, but the following algorithms must be discussed too (let's follow up in #114): + args_at + clear_args + pop_front_args + push_front_args + expand_args_right + expand_args_left - The lazy metafunctions and predicate traits should be SFINAE-friendly, just like the aliases are. I think this inconsistency is a big deal, enough to be a condition for acceptance. See #134. Summary of the feedback received -------------------------------- The following is a compilation of other points that were made during the review, but which are not requirements for acceptance. I trust, but do not require, that all of those points will be considered by the author: - There is a loss of information with the `args` metafunction. For example, `void(T)` and `void(T, ...)` both give the same result. See #132. - Consider adding a way of obtaining the parameter list of a function without the type of `*this`. See #133. - The documentation uses the terms of art "implementation defined" and "undefined behavior" incorrectly. See #103 and #131. - The non-reference documentation should present at least one real-world use case. See #116. - The library should handle top-level cv-qualifiers. See #106. - Consider supporting different calling conventions (e.g. `__cdecl`). See #102. - Consider adding a pre-C++17 implementation of `is_invocable` and friends. See #119. - The documentation should clearly state that the library can be used without the rest of Boost. See #99. - Consider combining `expand_args` and `args` into a single metafunction with a default "output" parameter of `std::tuple`. See #126. - Consider adding `make_fn` and `make_mem_fn` metafunctions to construct a signature from a return type and a tuple of the arguments. See #113. - Consider renaming some traits, like `is_reference_member`. See #108. - Reword some parts of the documentation that look odd due to the use of passive tense. See #105. - Consider adding a version of `apply_member_pointer` which carries cv-qualifiers. See #138. - Consider adding `remove_member_cv_ref` and `copy_member_cv_ref`. See #139. - Why does `qualified_parent_class_of` always returns a const& for PMDs? See #112. - Why does `qualified_parent_class_of` return a ref-qualified type even for unqualified PMFs? See #112. A few of my own comments: - Consider using alphabetical order in the table of contents of the reference. See #135. - Consider renaming `apply_member_pointer` to something like `make_member`. See #136. - Consider dropping the `parent_` in `parent_class_of`, or adding a note to justify the name. See #137. Again, thanks to everyone who participated in the review, and congratulations to Barrett for his work! Regards, Louis Dionne

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Re: [boost] Boost CRC maintainer (Daryle Walker) missing in action?
by Olaf van der Spek 19 Jun '17

19 Jun '17

Hi Daryle, Any luck on your new setup? Gr, Olaf On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 1:11 AM, Daryle Walker <darylew(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I can look at it once I've finished my new setup. > > I had to reset my computer after a partial crash years ago. I never > got around to recreating my programming setup. My computer had been > at its maximum Operating System level back then, which is now 3 > versions behind. For the past few months, I've had my sister's old > laptop, with Windows Vista, and am trying to add a programming setup > to it now. > > > On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 7:18 AM, Beman Dawes <bdawes(a)acm.org> wrote: >> Hi Daryle, >> >> This guy has volunteered to take over maintenance of Boost CRC. Should >> we take him up on his offer? > >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: >> Date: Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 7:51 AM >> Subject: [boost] Boost CRC maintainer (Daryle Walker) missing in action? >> To: boost(a)lists.boost.org >> >> >> Hi, >> >> It looks like the Boost CRC maintainer (Daryle Walker) is missing in action? >> >> No response to tickets from the past 3 years. What's the procedure in this case? >> >> https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/2492 >> https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/query?component=crc&col=id&col=summary&col… > > -- > Daryle Walker > Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie > darylew AT gmail DOT com -- Olaf

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[review] Review of PolyCollection starts today (May 3rd)
by Ion Gaztañaga 15 Jun '17

15 Jun '17

Hi everyone, The formal review of Joaquín M. López Muñoz's PolyCollection library starts today. I'd like to encourage your participation as the proposed library is small and focused, and reviewers don't need to be domain experts to appreciate the potential usefulness of the library and propose improvements. PolyCollection implements fast containers of polymorphic objects. Typically, polymorphic objects cannot be stored directly in regular containers and need be accessed through an indirection pointer, which introduces performance problems related to CPU caching and branch prediction. Boost.PolyCollection implements a novel data structure that is able to contiguously store polymorphic objects without such indirection, thus providing a value-semantics user interface and better performance. Three polymorphic collections are provided: * boost::base_collection * boost::function_collection * boost::any_collection dealing respectively with classic base/derived or OOP polymorphism, function wrapping in the spirit of std::function and so-called duck typing as implemented by Boost.TypeErasure. The library can be found here: Incubator: http://blincubator.com/bi_library/polycollection/?gform_post_id=1643 Github: https://github.com/joaquintides/poly_collection and the documentation here: http://rawgit.com/joaquintides/poly_collection/website/doc/html/index.html Please post your comments and review to the boost mailing list (preferably), the Boost Library Incubator. or privately to the Review Manager (to me ;-). Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: - 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? And most importantly: - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? For more information about Boost Formal Review Process, see: http://www.boost.org/community/reviews.html Waiting your reviews! Ion

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[beast] Request for Discussion
by Vinnie Falco 12 Jun '17

12 Jun '17

Beast provides low level HTTP and WebSocket interfaces built on Boost.Asio, the project is here: https://github.com/vinniefalco/Beast The plan is to solicit feedback from the Boost community before submitting a request for a formal review. First a brief update: I have attended CppCon 2016 and provided a 15 minute Lightning Talk on the library. There should be a video up at some point with all the talks, including mine. I spread the word about Beast and discovered that there are several folks in the wild already using the library and happy with it. There are also a couple of commercial products that are using it. One point brought up during the conference is that Beast does not offer sufficient higher level HTTP functionality. This omission is intentional. It is my idea to offer the building blocks (serializing and deserializing HTTP/1 messages, in synchronous and asynchronous flavors, and a universal HTTP message model), upon which other developers more knowledgeable than me could build those interfaces. The higher level pubic operations requested were: 1. Perform HTTP GET or POST and receive the response. Presumably this would handle both plain and TLS connections, handle redirects, and handle HEAD requests. Not sure about traversing proxies. 2. Expose an asynchronous HTTP server class which callers can instantiate with some sort of handler that returns the HTTP response given a request. It should be possible, in a minimal number of lines, to quickly get a server up and running. The requestor informed me that this functionality did not need to provide every possible feature or handle every use case. It just needed to handle the common use-cases. For the record, I am against this higher level functionality for a number of reasons. The higher the level of functionality, the more contentious the feature becomes, and the harder it is to satisfy a quorum of reviewers. No one would dispute that we need the ability to read a complete HTTP message from a socket. But not everyone will agree that a HTTP server needs an option to allow multiple listening sockets with different level of permissions. Another problem with offering higher level functionality is that it could be less likely to be approved for standardization in the C++ standard library. For example, the attributes of ease of use and fully functional oppose each other. If the functionality offered by a hypothetical std::http::client is not sufficient, a developer would be forced to write their own with little possibility to reuse parts of the implementation from the stdlib. I doubt the committee would approve of such a thing. I know I wouldn't. Admittedly I have little experience or knowledge on what would or would not get approved. A point was raised that a low-level-only HTTP implementation in Boost has the potential to discourage new users that need to perform simple operations like HTTP GET from using Boost in the future, given that robustly handling such operations would require the developer to write a significant amount of code. I can see some validity here. On the other hand, if Boost.Asio was submitted for a formal review today, would those same points be raised? Would Asio get rejected because it doesn't offer public interfaces for doing simple tasks like requesting an object from a web server? I wonder if perhaps the Boost formal review process has become defective. For reference here is what the current API offers: Example program that performs HTTP GET, then receives and prints the response: https://github.com/vinniefalco/Beast/blob/master/examples/http_example.cpp This is a high performance asynchronous HTTP server that serves local files as static pages. It is not an official API, it is part of the examples. Users who want a server need to copy the source code and modify it to suit their needs: https://github.com/vinniefalco/Beast/blob/master/examples/http_async_server… My initial purpose for requesting this discussion is two-fold: 1. Determine the level of consensus on the issue that Beast needs to do more for HTTP than the lowest level of functionality (reading and writing messages). I'm open to hearing all arguments for and against. 2. Get feedback on what official public interfaces to higher level functionality might look like. Specifically, a client that handles GET and POST, and a generic asynchronous server. And what features those interfaces would support. For example, is traversing a proxy a necessary feature for an official client interface? The best answers would provide function signatures or class declarations using the existing Beast HTTP types. In case its not clear, I am asking stakeholders and reviewers to help design the library. I'll open a discourse on the HTTP client to illustrate the proposed style of discussion: We want to provide a HTTP client implementation that lets users perform simple tasks like fetch a resource from a remote host. Calling code should be compact, letting people get their job done without getting mired in boilerplate. Here's a possible signature with example use: response_v1<string_body> get(std::string const& url, error_code& ec); error_code ec; auto res = get("http://boost.org", ec); if(! ec) std::cout << res; else std::cerr << ec.message() << '\n'; The get function would automatically perform the name resolution, connect the socket, request the resource with uri "/", and return the result. There's a problem here though, the caller is forced to use a message with std::string as the container for the body. An obvious fix is to add a template parameter: template<class Body = string_body> response_v1<Body> get(std::string const& url, error_code& ec); Better, but what if the body is not DefaultConstructible? We can add some parameters to forward to the Body constructor: template<class Body = string_body, Args&&... args> response_v1<Body> get(std::string const& url, error_code& ec, Args&&... args); We're getting somewhere now. Most users will use the default body, while an option exists for advanced users. But the implementation of get now has a complication. If an error occurs, it still has to construct a return value. This problem is likely surmountable but lets table it and start a new line of reasoning. What if the URI indicates https, e.g. "https://boost.org"? We can hide that under the hood by using a separate code path that uses asio::ssl::stream instead of ip::tcp::socket. But how does the caller provide the root CA certificates? How does the caller provide a client certificate? We are left with a client that satisfies two thirds of users but is unusable for the remaining one third. Is this Boost worthy? Is this std-lib worthy? I think not. Lets revisit the SSL issues later and think about a new problem. What happens to the socket when the request is done? In the proposed interface, the socket is destroyed. This means you can only make one request on a connection. At this point, I think its clear that the current interface is a non-starter. Here's a better idea. Lets define a class called client and make get a member function. Now we can have state, including configurable settings with reasonable defaults. class client { public: template<class Option> void set_option(Option&&); template<class Body = string_body, Args&&... args> response_v1<Body> get(std::string const& url, error_code& ec, Args&&... args); }; client c; error_code ec; auto res = c.get("http://boost.org", ec); if(! ec) std::cout << res; else std::cerr << ec.message() << '\n'; We still have some of the original problems, but other problems are solved. The class can keep the socket around, so that a subsequent call to get with the same server will use the already-open socket. The caller can set options on the client object instance before invoking get, such as any TLS certificates. Unfortunately we have new problems. Where is the io_service? If the class creates it for you, how many threads? How do I use my existing io_service, or is that even necessary? The class interface allows the connection to be kept alive but what if now the caller wants to close it (i.e. specify "Connection: close" in the request)? And there are some problems which are applicable to any interface. How does the caller adjust the parser options, for example change the limit on the size of the body? What if the caller wants the request made using a specific HTTP version? How does this handle basic authentication? How can the caller adjust the headers in the request? etc... This is why I think that offering a HTTP client is a rabbit hole which can only lead to a rejected formal review. Or maybe I am overthinking this? I'd love to hear proposed solutions to the issues (which could be just to say "forget about those features"). Despite my objection I have started work on these features anyway. Here are the beginnings of a HTTP client: https://github.com/vinniefalco/Beast/blob/88b485df7e6216282842f40cf99cc75de… Here is some work on a generic server: https://github.com/vinniefalco/Beast/blob/server/extras/beast/http/async_se… Please reply to this thread instead of starting a new thread, and keep the subject line prefix (e.g. "Re: [boost] [beast] ...") Thank you

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[outcome] Second high level summary of review feedback accepted so far
by Niall Douglas 11 Jun '17

11 Jun '17

Firstly thanks to everyone who has contributed no less than **618** emails at the time of writing to the Outcome review. Despite some on Reddit calling this review a "train wreck" and indeed some lovely things about me personally, I have found this review deeply helpful, and I believe so have most of its contributors in helping us all firm up our differing opinions about what such a vocabulary type ought to be. With regard to the previous high level summary at http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/outcome-High-level-summary-of-review-fee…, I have made only these changes to the changes in that summary: 1. I have been persuaded to use longer more appropriate naming for result<T> and outcome<T>, so now the typedefed varieties with implicit conversions to their empty-capable form indicated by "=>" are: - static_checked_outcome<T> => static_checked_optional_outcome<T> static_checked_result<T> => static_checked_optional_result<T> These have narrow observers which reinterpret_cast and are therefore undefined behaviour if the state does not match, but use __builtin_unreachable() to help static analysis tooling like clang-tidy spot UB where it can be statically deduced. Conceptually, they are a very thin convenience wrap of std::variant<...>. - runtime_checked_outcome<T> => runtime_checked_optional_outcome<T> runtime_checked_result<T> => runtime_checked_optional_result<T> The runtime_checked_optional_* varieties are identical and unchanged to the outcome<T> and result<T> in the submitted library. They have wide observers with a formal empty state and it is never undefined behaviour to call any observer. This allows the programmer to save typing considerable boilerplate knowing that the runtime checks save the programming needing to spell things out. I have not been persuaded to change a single thing in their design yet apart from removing unnecessary member functions, but thanks to everybody who has tried, and if you think I am making a critical mistake, you still have a few days left to persuade me of it! For anyone not familiar with the discussion and feels that the names are excessively long, be aware they are just convenience typedefs of a more complex to configure "template<...> class outcome_impl". It is expected that end users of the library will choose the varieties they want for their code and typedef them into their local namespace as "result<T>" or whatever. Nobody is proposing that end users actually type out the full name each and every time they use them, and the documentation will make that clear. 2. I have been persuaded to replace the implicit conversion from static_checked_* varieties to runtime_checked_* varieties with explicit conversion instead as the implicit conversion could produce runtime failure where the programmer did not expect that to occur. Regarding other changes that I have accepted since the previous high level summary: 1. Outcome's STL exception throw catch to result<T> super-macro was found to be overkill given that current compilers won't replace simple throw...catch sequences with a branch, and still invoke the full throw-catch runtime machinery whatever the case. Therefore an exception to error code conversion function makes more sense than a macro. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/50 2. Outcome's usage of git submodules is felt by some reviewers to be a showstopper for acceptance as they could bring in non-Boost code unexpectedly in the future. I have agreed to make a cronjob script generated Boost.Outcome from standalone Outcome in the same fashion as Boost.ASIO is script generated from standalone ASIO. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/51 - Licensing to be BSL only - No cmake, just bjam - No git submodules at all - std-flavoured, not boost-flavoured - No code to be brought in except that written by me i.e. a hardcoded whitelist applies. - Contents of Boost repo to only contain material directly relevant to Boost. Nothing else. 3. Under the assumption that error_code_extended's use of a static global ring buffer would be controversial in this review, I hacked a quick and dirty solution expecting to have to remove it. Now we know that few disapprove, a more serious implementation will be needed. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/52 4. Given where Vicente appears to be heading next with expected<T, E1, E2, ...> it may be wise to make the static_checked_* varieties use std::variant<...> for storage when being compiled on C++ 17. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/53 Thanks, Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

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[outcome] High level summary of review feedback accepted so far
by Niall Douglas 05 Jun '17

05 Jun '17

Some reviewers have asked what form Outcome will take in the near future. The following is a high level summary of the changes already made on develop branch or will be made according to https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues logged from review feedback. I have left out some minor issues, this lists just the major changes. This should help reviewers to decide whether to recommend acceptance or rejection. If there are any questions, please do ask. Major design changes: ===================== - option<T> to be removed https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/48 - outcome<T> and result<T> will have their empty state removed, and all observers gain narrow contracts. Default construction is disabled. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/44. Example: ``` result<Foo> v(make_errored_result(std::errc::invalid_argument)); assert(v.has_error()); // true assert(!v.has_value()); // true // As if Foo(reinterpret_cast<Foo &&> // (error_code_extended(std::errc::invalid_argument)); Foo f(std::move(v.value())); assert(v.has_error()); // still true assert(!v.has_value()); // still true ``` (NOTE: expected<T, E> will track whatever LEWG Expected does, but it differs from what will become result<T> by having a wide contract on .value() and narrow contracts on operator*(), .error(), operator->(). result<T> will have narrow contracts on everything, it is basically a thin wrap of std::variant<T, error_code_extended> except with strong never empty warranty) - New typedefs outcome_e<T> and result_e<T> are identical to outcome<T> and result<T> except for adding a formal empty state. Observer contract slightly widens, an attempt to use an empty object throws a bad_outcome_access exception. Implicit conversion from non-empty-capable varieties is permitted to empty-capable varieties, but not the other way round. Default construction is to **empty**. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/44 - New typedefs checked_outcome<T>/checked_result<T>, checked_outcome_e<T>/checked_result_e<T> are added. These mirror the editions just described, but checks and default actions occur on all observer usage so hidden reinterpret_cast<> never occurs. Implicit conversion from non-checked varieties is permitted to checked varieties, but not the other way round. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/47. Examples: ``` // Note result<T> implicitly converts to checked_result<T>, but not // the other way round. So we can use same make_errored_result(). checked_result<Foo> v(make_errored_result(std::errc::invalid_argument)); assert(v.has_error()); // true assert(!v.has_value()); // true // .value() throws std::system_error( // std::make_error_code(std::errc::invalid_argument)); Foo f(std::move(v.value())); ``` ``` checked_result<Foo> v(make_valued_result(Foo())); assert(!v.has_error()); // true assert(v.has_value()); // true // .error() returns a default constructed (null) error_code_extended // when result is valued to indicate "no error here" error_code_extended ec(std::move(v.error())); assert(!ec); // true ``` - The presented library self generates using lots of preprocessor based multiple #include's to stamp out finished editions of implementation. The git repo partially preprocesses this into a nearly finished edition for minimum compile time load for end users. Due to the many more varieties of outcome<T> and result<T> provided, the preprocessor machinery would be replaced with a template based machinery instead. I will look into making optional use of extern template and a static library to retain minimum compile time load, but header only usage will remain possible. Smaller design changes: ======================= - tribool stuff to go away in default configured build. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/22 - .get*() functions will be removed. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/24 - Don't include <windows.h> on winclang. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/39 Documentation changes: ====================== - Licence boilerplate missing on some files. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/38 - Reference API docs need to spell out exact preconditions, postconditions and semantics per API. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/26 - Reference API docs need to describe types void_rebound, *_type and raw_*_type in detail. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/29 - User overridable macros which throw exceptions and provide customisation points have vanished from the docs somehow. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/35 - Landing page and introduction to be broken up into bitesize single page chunks. https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/41 Still to be decided: ==================== - Should *_e() varieties provide convenience .get(), .get_error(), .get_exception() which returns T, error_code_extended and std::exception_ptr by value moved from internal state, resetting state afterwards to empty? These would mirror future.get()'s single shot observers. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

10 104

[outcome] non-interface-related concerns
by Andrzej Krzemienski 05 Jun '17

05 Jun '17

The discussion mostly revolves around the design of the interface of `outcome::expected` and even `std::expected`. My questions here are about the way this library will be distributed to users. And I am uncomfortable with the situation. I am not necessarily saying it is wrong, but I do not understand what is going on here. 1. The current GitHub repository consists of sub-repos. Do you (Niall) plan to have it like this when the library is accepted? Is it relevant? 2. This macro BOOST_OUTCOME_DISABLE_PREPROCESSED_INTERFACE_FILE, it controls whether I use this "preprocessed" file versus if I use... what? Normal header files? What is gained by this preprocessed file? Not having to include more than one header, or something else? Can I get different results when compiling with and without this macro? 3. I am recommended to use this macro BOOST_OUTCOME_V1_NAMESPACE. I am told it has something to do with ABI stability? Can you elaborate on how this guarantees ABI stability. Or is its purpose different? I have a certain problem with understanding this philosophy. A couple of days back, I reported the compilation failure in MinGW. I can see that the issue (https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/36) is reorted as fixed in branch 'develop'. I would like to confirm that the bug is fixed. I checkout branch develop. There is no branch develop for the sub-repos, so what am I supposed to checkout, master, or some particular commit? I went with master. I do not understand a lot of CMake, but since it is a header-only library, I assume that I can just #include the file "include/boost/outcome.hpp", and my programs (compiled manually) should compile. But the only change in the commit that was supposed to fix the bug, was in a .cmake file, so I cannot see how it would help fix a header only library. Also, would the fix be visible in a "precompiled" header, or normal headres, or both? I am not complaining about this particular fix. I would like to know how in this system of mcros, sub-modules and preprocessed headers, I can figure out what changes will be observed in my program, when I see a particular change in git sub-repo. Regards, &rzej;

10 42

[outcome] To variant, or not to variant?
by Gavin Lambert 03 Jun '17

03 Jun '17

I probably should have thought of asking this earlier, but it occurs to me now that my own mental model of how an "outcome"-ish type should act is probably not suited to variant storage at all. So just out of curiosity I thought I'd ask whether people prefer this sort of interface: template<typename T> class outcome { public: bool has_value() const { return m_storage.has<T>(); } T& value() { return m_storage.get<T>(); } bool has_error() const { return m_storage.has<error_code>(); } error_code& error() { return m_storage.get<error_code>(); } bool has_exception() const { return m_storage.has<exception_ptr>(); } exception_ptr& exception() { return m_storage.get<exception_ptr>(); } void set(none_t) { m_storage = none; } void set(const T& val) { m_storage = val; } void set(error_code err) { m_storage = err; } void set(exception_ptr ep) { m_storage = ep; } private: variant<none_t, T, error_code, exception_ptr> m_storage; }; Or this sort of interface: template<typename T> class outcome { public: bool has_value() const { return !!m_value; } T& value() { ensure(); return m_value.value(); } //bool has_error() const { return !!m_error; } const error_code& error() const { return m_error; } //bool has_exception() const { return !!m_exception; } const exception_ptr& exception() const { return m_exception; } void ensure() const { if (m_exception) { rethrow_exception(m_exception); } if (m_error) { throw system_error(m_error); } } void set(none_t) { m_value = none; m_error = error_code(); m_exception = nullptr; } void set(const T& val) { m_value = val; m_error = error_code(); m_exception = nullptr; } void set(error_code err) { m_value = none; m_error = err; m_exception = nullptr; } void set(exception_ptr ep) { m_value = none; m_error = ep ? error_code(errc::has_exception) : error_code(); m_exception = ep; } private: optional<T> m_value; error_code m_error; exception_ptr m_exception; }; (Don't get too hung up on the specifics. This is a sketch, not a real implementation. I've obviously omitted things that a real implementation would need such as more const methods and move support, and construction and assignment rather than using set methods. The focus is on variant vs. non-variant.) Anyway, the point is that this could actually transport multiple things; in particular as above both an error_code and an exception_ptr; perhaps set(error_code) could construct an exception as well, although I've explained elsewhere why I don't like that option. Perhaps this could even be exposed even more so that user code could explicitly provide both a value and an error -- think "here's a value, but it was truncated" or "here's the 5 values you asked for, but there's more", both fairly common in system APIs. Or for things like ambiguous matches where you still return the most likely candidate. Or dictionary insertion (duplicate key, but here's the value that's already there). Or many more such examples. (Though obviously in this case value() couldn't call ensure(). But that should make some people happy.) Also note has_error() and has_exception() don't even need to be provided in this version since you can always call error() and exception() in a boolean context anyway, with the same result. (Or actually a slightly better result than the implementation shown here.) The obvious downside is that it now uses more storage, which might hinder some inlining cases.

9 63

[units] Compilation fails on quantity copy-construction
by Pavel Kretov 31 May '17

31 May '17

Hi all! I'm trying to make use of Boost.Units in a simple FDTD simulation program, but found a strange behavior of some kind. Consider the following demonstration example where I try to calculate time step from spatial steps according to the CFL condition [1]: #include <iostream> #include <boost/units/physical_dimensions.hpp> #include <boost/units/systems/si.hpp> #include <boost/units/cmath.hpp> #include <boost/units/io.hpp> int main() { namespace bu = boost::units; namespace si = boost::units::si; using dimless = bu::quantity<si::dimensionless, float>; bu::quantity<si::length, float> dx = 1.0f * si::meter, dy = 1.0f * si::meter; bu::quantity<si::velocity, float> v = 1.0f * si::meter_per_second; bu::quantity<si::time, float> dt = 0.5f / (v * bu::sqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); std::cout << dt << std::endl; } The code looks okay to me, but when I try to compile it, I get a scary error message: main.cpp:20:19: error: no match for ‘operator/’ (operand types are ‘float’ and ‘<THE_TERROR_THAT_FLAPS_IN_THE_NIGHT>’) dt = 0.5f / (v * bu::sqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); ~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ where the second operand type looks like boost::units::multiply_typeof_helper< boost::units::quantity< boost::units::unit< [{length_base_dimension, static_rational<1l>}, {time_base_dimension, static_rational<-1l, 1l>}], boost::units::si::system, float>, boost::units::quantity< boost::units::unit< [{length_base_dimension, static_rational<-1l, 1l>}], boost::units::si::system, double>>::type In the above expression [{}, {}, ...] is a pseudo-code for static head-tail list of boost::units::dim<Unit, Rat> pairs. Note the 'double' type materialized from barely nowhere: the code explicitly defines everything as 'float', it's the 'bu::sqrt' to blame for it to appear. Note that replacing 'bu::sqrt' with 'bu::pow<1, 2>()' does not help. As I didn't feel happy with the above error message, I mutated the code a bit and made it to work with: bu::quantity<si::time, float> dt; dt = dimless(0.5f) / (v * bu::sqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); I had to both (a) add 'dimless', and (b) separate variable declaration and definition. Doing only (a) didn't help. Mkay, but what if I need to have a const quantity? (I'm a big fan of making everything 'const'!). The only one thing I could do was to roll out my own 'sqrt' and 'pow' functions. Here they are: #include <boost/units/get_system.hpp> #include <boost/units/get_dimension.hpp> #include <boost/units/static_rational.hpp> #include <boost/units/quantity.hpp> #include <boost/units/dimension.hpp> template<typename Unit, int N, int M = 1> using static_power_helper = boost::units::unit< typename boost::units::static_power< typename boost::units::get_dimension<Unit>::type, typename boost::units::static_rational<N, M>::type>::type, typename boost::units::get_system<Unit>::type>; template<int N, typename Unit, typename Y> auto ratpow(boost::units::quantity<Unit, Y> const &x) -> boost::units::quantity<static_power_helper<Unit, N>, Y> { using std::pow; return decltype(ratpow<N>(x))::from_value(pow(x.value(), N)); } template<int N, int M, typename Unit, typename Y> auto ratpow(boost::units::quantity<Unit, Y> const &x) -> boost::units::quantity<static_power_helper<Unit, N, M>, Y> { using std::pow; return decltype(ratpow<N, M>(x))::from_value(pow(x.value(), (Y) N / M)); } template<typename Unit, typename Y> auto msqrt(boost::units::quantity<Unit, Y> const &x) -> decltype(ratpow<1, 2>(x)) { return ratpow<1, 2>(x); } Using them I was able to compile the original form of the expression (as seen in the very first listing): bu::quantity<si::time, float> const dt = 0.5f / (v * msqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); The questions: 1. Is it possible to work around the problem without custom 'sqrt'? 2. Is the described behavior intentional, -or- Is there an error in Boost.Units' implementation of 'sqrt'? 3. If the 'boost::unit::sqrt' is fine, is there something wrong with my implementation? ――― Pavel K. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy_condition

2 1

[poly_collection] Questions about merging into Boost
by Joaquin M López Muñoz 31 May '17

31 May '17

Boost.PolyCollection was recently accepted into Boost and I'm planning to integrate it into https://github.com/boostorg/ asap to begin test cycling. I am not sure if the lib will be in a good enough shape for launching with Boost 1.65, though. Questions: 1. The current repository is https://github.com/joaquintides/poly_collection , which has branches master (code) and website (for the online docs). Is the following the right procedure for integration with Boost? a. Rename master to develop (https://gist.github.com/lttlrck/9628955 ) b. Transfer repo to boostorg (https://help.github.com/articles/about-repository-transfers/ ) c. Ask for write permission to github.com/boostorg/poly_collection 2. Can the repo not have a master branch until I decide the lib is ready for launch? Will this result in poly_collection simply not being in Boost releases while still develop tests are cycling? Thank you, Joaquín M López Muñoz

4 4

[outcome] Andrzej's review
by Andrzej Krzemienski 31 May '17

31 May '17

Hi Everyone, This is my review of Boost.Outcome library. First, I want to thank Niall for taking the effort to write the library, promoting it, sharing with the community, and submitting for Boost review. I think that the library has already proven useful regardless of this review's outcome (or should I say 'result'). I recommend to REJECT the library at this point, and encourage the author to re-submit it after the list of what I consider issues -- described below -- has been addressed. Why reject and not conditionally accept? It is possible to say that I accept the library if this "delta" is applied to the current submission's state. Niall has indicated a couple of times that he is willing to apply even big changes, if this is what reviewers wish. But the amount of change that would be required, plus the uncertainty what the "delta" actually is, plus a general confusion as to what library is for, as reported by others (the effect of the current shape of documentation), in total make the conditional acceptance too fragile. What are we reviewing? It would be fair to assume that we are reviewing the master branch, SHA 4851926c1c601c0e9391b2d0d07fb17f634b3ecb, but there is also a "delta" described by Niall in high-level in one of the messages: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/outcome-High-level-summar y-of-review-feedback-accepted-so-far-td4694767.html. So maybe the master + that delta. It describes that we will have like 10 types, like outcome_e, checked_outcome_e, etc.. Now in another thread I hear there will only be 5 types: optional_outcome and outcome. This makes me believe that the compromise solutions and promises are being made in a hurry, and this will likely result in (1) suboptimal design and (2) misunderstandings as to what we are actually agreeing to. Am I knowledgeable about the problem domain? If the domain is "reporting function failures in predictable-latency environments", then no, I have no experience with this domain. I also have no experience with `expected`, although having worked on formal specification of `std::optional` I am familiar with a number of issues that `expected` also needs to solve. Also, a number of controversies revolves around git sub-modules, dual licensing and Boost distribution process. I do not feel competent in this area either. How much effort did I put into the evaluation? I have read a number of versions of the documentation. Had a long email exchange with Niall in order to understand what the library does. I had a glimpse at the source code to figure out the pieces that were missing from documentation. I have tried running my own test examples on GCC 6.3.0 with MinGW w64 5.0.0 (doesn't work) and GCC 6.3.1 on Fedora (works fine). Is the library useful? Yes. Apparently it solves an important problem in predictable-latency environments. This is confirmed by the user base the library already has managed to acquire. It provides an implementation of the to-be standardized `exceptional`, which allows for experimentation. I believe Boost would benefit from including this library (after the issues have been resolved). I am confident Niall has knowledge about problem domain. Documentation. It has two serious deficiencies. It lacks an introductory part that would clearly and shortly describe what problem the library is solving an how, how can I use it and when should I use it. It is also missing a reference with documented semantics. One cannot tell what outocme's default constructor does, or what function error() does when you have an exception_ptr inside. I believe Niall when he says his users do not need this documentation: they immediately grasp what and how it is doing. But of the Boost library I expect a high-quality documentation. I think that these deficiencies in the documentation prevent a successful review of the library. I bet there are people who were put off by the docs and will not proceed to reviewing the library further, even though they could have given you many valuable insights, or point out defects. Some will stop at criticizing the docs. Any potential flaws in the library will not even be revealed. This may be the reason why things like ring buffer were not opposed: the potential critics may have not gotten that far. This is one of the reasons that I would recommend fixing the docs and staring the review again without the distraction. On the other hand, there is a lot of useful material in the documentation. For sure it is a way better that the original versions. For instance, the usage of ring buffer is documented clearly. Design. The idea to represent either a returned value or a reason for the lack thereof as `variant<T, error_code, exception_ptr>` is sound. Fixing the `E` to a single type is sound. using_error_code extended (along with ring buffer) for carrying payload is sound. I also like the fact that you only have three "monads": `outcome`, `result` and `expected`, and that they are maximally different: expected and result make the opposite decision on practically any aspect. This is a reasonable compromise between many possible combinations of micro-decisions, and the expectation to have a small number of types. `option` should go, I think. I can think of no use case for it. However, the design still changes throughout the review, and has not stabilized yet. The last message is that we may have varieties for narrow versus wide contract or we will have duplicated observers, and this has not been settled on yet. The consequence of using the ring buffer, where the error message can suddenly disappear is unfortunate, but then again, I know of no way to make it better. It might be the best choice of those available. I wish someone from low-latency users stepped in and commented on whether this is the right choice and whether the choice of these particular members (a short string, two unsigned ints) is the optimum in practice. Some aspects of design, to me seem unclear. E.g., what does it mean that `outcome` has value but I am calling `o.error()`? Is it a programmer error, which the function is trying to conceal, or does `o.error()` mean "convert `outcome` to `error_code`, whatever the state? Similarly, when `exception()` also recognizes error_codes, and `error()` does not recognize exception_ptrs looks quite random: I cannot see a mental model behind it. You could document detailed semantics of each function, but this would not be enough. I need a clear mental model, like "every error_code or exception_ptr is collectively called 'exception' in this library". If you do not support `outcome<T&>, I need a clear indication of it and a rationale. Implementation. These dual licensing, testing and git sub-module issues. I am not an expert in how Boost is organized, but a number of people I consider qualified have reported strong objections, and this has to be considered. A Boost library must be compliant with "the way things work in Boost" even if it is felt that things work wrong in Boost. I did not look much, at the implementation, but it looks acceptable on the surface. The assignment (most tricky part, I think) is implemented quite clearly. Sometimes static_assert's constrain too much. A non-default-constructible types should be allowed. Types that throw upon copy/move construction should be allowed provided I do not call the assignment on outcome/expected. I am told `outcome<error_code>` does not work. I am not sure if this is fortunate. It is no longer an `outcome<T>` that works for any Regular T. What if I have a function that optains an error_code and might potentially fail. How can I express this in the interface? (Or do I have to wrap in `outcome<unique<error_code>>`?) `outcome` has function swap overloaded in namespace std. I am not sure if it is legal, but even if so, I would recommend implementing it in `outcome`'s namespace, in order not to mess with `std`. Again, thanks Niall for this library, and for a very educational discussion. Regards, &rzej;

2 1

[units] Compilation fails on quantity copy-construction
by Pavel Kretov 31 May '17

31 May '17

Hi all! I'm trying to make use of Boost.Units in a simple FDTD simulation program, but found a strange behavior of some kind. Consider the following demonstration example where I try to calculate time step from spatial steps according to the CFL condition [1]: #include <iostream> #include <boost/units/physical_dimensions.hpp> #include <boost/units/systems/si.hpp> #include <boost/units/cmath.hpp> #include <boost/units/io.hpp> int main() { namespace bu = boost::units; namespace si = boost::units::si; using dimless = bu::quantity<si::dimensionless, float>; bu::quantity<si::length, float> dx = 1.0f * si::meter, dy = 1.0f * si::meter; bu::quantity<si::velocity, float> v = 1.0f * si::meter_per_second; bu::quantity<si::time, float> dt = 0.5f / (v * bu::sqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); std::cout << dt << std::endl; } The code looks okay to me, but when I try to compile it, I get a scary error message: main.cpp:20:19: error: no match for ‘operator/’ (operand types are ‘float’ and ‘<THE_TERROR_THAT_FLAPS_IN_THE_NIGHT>’) dt = 0.5f / (v * bu::sqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); ~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ where the second operand type looks like boost::units::multiply_typeof_helper< boost::units::quantity< boost::units::unit< [{length_base_dimension, static_rational<1l>}, {time_base_dimension, static_rational<-1l, 1l>}], boost::units::si::system, float>, boost::units::quantity< boost::units::unit< [{length_base_dimension, static_rational<-1l, 1l>}], boost::units::si::system, double>>::type In the above expression [{}, {}, ...] is a pseudo-code for static head-tail list of boost::units::dim<Unit, Rat> pairs. Note the 'double' type materialized from barely nowhere: the code explicitly defines everything as 'float', it's the 'bu::sqrt' to blame for it to appear. Note that replacing 'bu::sqrt' with 'bu::pow<1, 2>()' does not help. As I didn't feel happy with the above error message, I mutated the code a bit and made it to work with: bu::quantity<si::time, float> dt; dt = dimless(0.5f) / (v * bu::sqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); I had to both (a) add 'dimless', and (b) separate variable declaration and definition. Doing only (a) didn't help. Mkay, but what if I need to have a const quantity? (I'm a big fan of making everything 'const'!). The only one thing I could do was to roll out my own 'sqrt' and 'pow' functions. Here they are: #include <boost/units/get_system.hpp> #include <boost/units/get_dimension.hpp> #include <boost/units/static_rational.hpp> #include <boost/units/quantity.hpp> #include <boost/units/dimension.hpp> template<typename Unit, int N, int M = 1> using static_power_helper = boost::units::unit< typename boost::units::static_power< typename boost::units::get_dimension<Unit>::type, typename boost::units::static_rational<N, M>::type>::type, typename boost::units::get_system<Unit>::type>; template<int N, typename Unit, typename Y> auto ratpow(boost::units::quantity<Unit, Y> const &x) -> boost::units::quantity<static_power_helper<Unit, N>, Y> { using std::pow; return decltype(ratpow<N>(x))::from_value(pow(x.value(), N)); } template<int N, int M, typename Unit, typename Y> auto ratpow(boost::units::quantity<Unit, Y> const &x) -> boost::units::quantity<static_power_helper<Unit, N, M>, Y> { using std::pow; return decltype(ratpow<N, M>(x))::from_value(pow(x.value(), (Y) N / M)); } template<typename Unit, typename Y> auto msqrt(boost::units::quantity<Unit, Y> const &x) -> decltype(ratpow<1, 2>(x)) { return ratpow<1, 2>(x); } Using them I was able to compile the original form of the expression (as seen in the very first listing): bu::quantity<si::time, float> const dt = 0.5f / (v * msqrt(1.0f/(dx*dx) + 1.0f/(dy*dy))); The questions: 1. Is it possible to work around the problem without custom 'sqrt'? 2. Is the described behavior intentional, -or- Is there an error in Boost.Units' implementation of 'sqrt'? 3. If the 'boost::unit::sqrt' is fine, is there something wrong with my implementation? ――― Pavel K. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy_condition

1 0

[config] C++17 macros wanted
by Tal Lancaster 31 May '17

31 May '17

I have been adding C++17 features to date_time. There are two config macros, I would like to have: Test for C++17’s constexpr inline feature. Maybe call it something like: BOOST_NO_CXX17_CONSTEXPR_INLINE Test for C++17’s structured binding feature. Maybe call it something like: BOOST_NO_CXX17_STRUCT_BIND

3 7

[outcome] How to drop the formal empty state
by Niall Douglas 31 May '17

31 May '17

There has been a fair bit of review feedback that people don't like the formal empty state in outcome<T> and result<T>. I still think this opinion daft, just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it, but here are some options: 1. Like Expected, we could require the E types to provide a nothrow move constructor. This would allow us to guarantee no empty state, not ever. Default constructing an outcome<T> or result<T> would set a default constructed T state, just like Expected. The only remaining difference now between result<T> and expected<T> would be the wide vs narrow observer functions. outcome<T> still can also carry a std::exception_ptr. 2. We could do the above, but default constructor constructs to some constexpr undefined state that is not state T nor E. 3. We could only provide a guarantee of no empty state if the E types provide nothrow move construction, but if they do not we fall back to an empty state arising if throws occur during assignment. 4. The option for an empty state becomes a template parameter defaulted to false i.e. disabled. This can be combined with any of the above. Thoughts? Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

6 47

[review] Review of Outcome (ends Fri-June-2)
by charleyb123 . 31 May '17

31 May '17

Reminder -- On Fri-26-May the Review Wizards approved extending the Outcome review until Fri-02-June. (Notification was sent to the list, but considering the high traffic volume lately, one can be forgiven for having missed that message.) Thank you to everyone for your tremendous efforts in taking part in the review; for keeping up with high message traffic; and for the professional and deep exploration of the many (very broad!) topics touched on during this review. The review continues for several more days, ending Fri-02-June (it will not be extended further). Please consider posting a review to the boost mailing list, or privately to the Review Manager (to me). Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: - 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? And most importantly: - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? For more information about Boost Formal Review Process, see: http://www.boost.org/community/reviews.html Thank you very much for your time and efforts. --charley

3 2

[gil] where is the mysterious boost::gil::read_image function?
by Frédéric Bron 31 May '17

31 May '17

I would like to read a jpeg image from a memory location, not from a file. According to this post http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/gil-io-new-review-Reading-images-from-in… there is a boost::gil::read_image(input_stream, image, image_tag) function but I cannot find it in the header files. Thanks, Frédéric

1 0

[future.then] Should deferred continuation respect status of original future?
by Tomas Sturm 31 May '17

31 May '17

Hi, consider this code that wraps some library returning a future: // some async library boost::future<intermediate> DoLongAsyncTask() { return myPromise.get_future(); } // intermediate translation layer boost::future<result> GetResult() { return DoLongAsyncTask().then([] (boost::future<intermediate> f) { return TranslateToResult(f.get()); }); } // client event loop void RunInClientContext() { auto myFuture = GetResult(); while (stuffToDo()) { doStuff(); if (SafeToCallFutureGetWithoutBlocking(myFuture)) ProcessResult(myFuture.get()); } } What should the implementation of 'SafeToCallFutureGetWithoutBlocking' be? Normally, one would write something like: myFuture.is_ready() or myFuture.wait_for(chrono::seconds(0)) != future_status::timeout But this doesn't work in case the implementation of intermediate translation layer calls .then with launch::deferred! In Boost 1.63 the future returned from .then(launch::deferred, ...) is always deferred, so wait_for(...) always returns deferred no matter what (and is_ready() always returns false). In fact, there is no way to implement 'SafeToCallFutureGetWithoutBlocking' if the translation is to happen in the context of the client (launch::deferred). Wouldn't it be more natural to respect the status of the original future in this case? The documentation is already very clear that the continuation is executed only after the original future is ready. So in case a client asks whether the continuation future is ready, and the original future is not ready yet, the call should forward to the original future instead. What I propose is this: promise<int> p; future<int> f1 = p.get_future(); future<int> f2 = f1.then(launch::deferred, [] (auto f) { return f.get(); }); assert(f2.wait_for(0) == future_status::timeout); p.set_value(42); assert(f2.wait_for(0) == future_status::deferred); Is there any reason for the continuation future to not behave this way? Regards Tomas

2 1

[outcome] narrow-contract, wide-contract, and value_if
by Andrzej Krzemienski 31 May '17

31 May '17

Hi Everyone, Some comments about `outcome`'s observers with narrow and wide contracts. First, the wide-contract functions. We have a situation when someone assumes that `o` currently stores an error_code, and with this assumption in mind calls `o.error()`, but somehow his assumption is incorrect. What do we want to do? 1. Try to report programmer's bug at run-time? 2. Since in this case it is a bug anyway and are screwed, at least let's make such behavior useful for other situations where `error()` is called conciously on `o` without an error code? The first scenario attempts at identifying a bug, bringing it to attention of developers (maybe in form of a log), and minimizing its consequences by perhaps skipping the execution of some part of the program in hope that the bug will no show symptoms again. The second scenario in a way ignores the bug, and lets the program continue, as though it was correct, and from now on the program is doing something else than what the programmer intended. But the semantics of the function are useful in itself. Users who check `o.has_error()` before calling it can use it as if `error()` had a single purpose and a narrow contract; and users who know the additional semantics can use it for other useful things, like saving themselves of writing some boilerplate code. It is my impression that some of these observer functions in `outcome` follow this second scenario: just do something useful for people who use it unchecked. Saving boilerplate is useful, but let's state it clear: these functions offer no protection against inadvertent mistakes: no run-time or static protection. If I call `o.error()` and it throws when `o.is_empty()`, it is a form of protection. If `o.error()` returns `E{}` when `o.has_value()`, this is no protection, it is convinience function that can be used as a narrow-contract observer. Maybe the interface of `outcome` should make this distinction and offer two sets: one for observers with run-time protection, and the other for nice convenience functions? Second, narrow-contract functions. Narrow functions acheive the following goals: 1. Simple design: function only does one thing, it does not have any if inside. 2. The interface of the library makes a clear distinction of what is valid and what is an invalid usage of the library. It helps in code reviews. For instance, you are looking for a bug in a big code, you find the following piece: ``` auto e = o.error(); ``` and it turns out that `e` contains a value. Did you just find a bug, or was it the author's intention to get an `E{}` at this point? You do not know with wide contracts. With narrow contracts you know: it is a bug. 3. Narrow contracts assist instrumentation in test builds and runs. If I have function `just_value` with a narrow contract, I leave myself the freedom: I can do whatever I want when has_value() is false. What can I do with this freedom: A. In test build, I can check the precondition at run-time and launch the debugger B. I can (run-time) check the precondition, and std::termiante() or throw an exception. C. I can ignore the potential precondition violation, check nothing and aim at some performance gain. D. I can put some code that assists the static analyser (like __builtin_unreachable()) E. I can put some instrumentation code that assists an UB sanitizer (like __builtin_unreachable()) F. I can put hints for optimizer (like __builtin_unreachable(), again) G. Finally, I can put a macro `PRECONDITION(has_value())` which can do any of the above based on the build configuration. Given that, the proposed function `value_if` (which returns a pointer to value) will not satisfy my needs. It has a wide contract, so I cannot put macro `PRECONDITION()` inside. It rturns a pointer. The pointer's operator-> inded does have a narrow contract, but it gives me no room where I can put macro `PRECONDITION()`. So I get some narrow contract, but without the benefits I am looking for. So that is my view of the observer functions. Now my proposal is to provide a pair of observers for each value, error_code and exception -- narrow and wide: `value()` and `just_value()`, `error()` and `just_error()`, `exception()` and `just_exception()` Or maybe, even three for narrow-contract, wide-contract with run-time protection, and for convenience function: `error()` -- wide-contract, runtime-checked precondition `just_error()` -- narrow contract `as_error()` -- convenience function, e.g. returns E{}, on value, monad::has_exception on exception, etc.. Regards, &rzej;

2 2

[outcome] user's experience
by Andrzej Krzemienski 30 May '17

30 May '17

Hi Everyone, In order to test Boost.Outcome, I applied it to the problem I had to solve at work a while ago. For people who do not know what Boost.Outcome is for, this could be an introduction. For me it can be an opportunity to obtain feedback from Niall and Vicente, If I am using `expected` correctly, and they can get some feedback from me. Here is the task. I get an std::string as input: it is a data structure encoded in ASCII text: "1-10|11-20|21-99;1-10|10-50|51-99" Semicolons separate "distributions". Within distribution, vertical bars separate "ranges". Within ranges, dashes separarate integer numbers. There are some additional constrains. like ranges within distribution cannot overlap, no gaps between ranges are allowed, and a couple more. I need to validate if the input matches the required format, and build a corresponding data structure. But the vaidation cannot be just binary valid-invalied answer: I want to give user a description of what exactly is wrong with her input, as detailed as possible. So, I have function parse, that internally calls parse_distribution, which in turn calls parse_range. Each of them can return different parsing error that needs to be propagated up. My original implementation used "out" function parameters for signalling errors. Code was unnecessarily long and it was easy to forget to check results from functions, but I didn't want to use exceptions to indicate validation failures, because there is nothin exceptional about it. You expect input validation to fail -- quite often. Now, this is a more philosophic question: when to use (or not) exceptions. One citerion I sometimes use is, "do I want my debugger to automatically break if this function reports faiure?" So I didn't use exceptions for input validation, but the ugliness of the code forced me to go back to rewrite it with exceptions. The code was shorter, and "saer" in the sense that I could not forget ot pass the failure up the stack. Now with Boost.Outcome I have a third option. It is almost as concise as exceptions, but does not use exceptions. Here is my implementation: https://github.com/akrzemi1/__sandbox__/blob/master/outcome_practical_examp… Note a couple of things. I am creating a number of temporay strings under way, they all can throw bad_alloc. I am fine with that. I am not affraid of throwing an exception, it is only the validation failures that I want to report with `expected`. For other failures I want exceptions. This is input validation. It does not have to be super fast. In the public API of this file, I will not be exposing the information about parsing failues. `process` will consume the error information and just output something. So, the choice of `E` in `expected<T, E>` is internal to a file, and I can choose something specific to my use case. I provid my own type, which encodes different erroneous situations in an enum, and two ints for additional details. ``` struct BadInput { enum { no_distrib = 1, range_count_not_3, distrib_starts_with_no_1, distrib_ends_with_no_99, gap_between_ranges, overlap_between_ranges, inverted_range, no_2_numbers_in_range, not_a_number, } type; int val1; int val2; }; ``` It is quite similar to Outcome's error_code_extended. Now, I also wanted to have an std::string member inside, but `expected` forbids it: It says as per LWG requirements `E` in `expected<T, E>` must not kave a throwing copy constructor. Is that right? In my use case it wouldn't harm anyone: if copying of `expected` throws, entire function `process` is exited, with a bad_alloc, which is fine. No `expected` with partial state will be ever observed. Do we need this restriction? Also, at some point I will be returning an `expected<vector<T>, E>`, which makes me uneasy. Returning vectors wrapped in something: will I get runtime penalty for it? So, I naturally arrived at a pattern that Niall described in the other thread: ``` out::expected<vector<T>, E> parse (...) { out::expected<vector<T>, E> ans {out::value}; vector<T> & vec = ans.value(); // will if statement be ellided?} // fill vec return ans; } ``` (BTW, this constant out::value is not documented in the docs, unlike out::value_t.) It has been mentioned a number of times that an optimizing compiler can remove a redundant if-statement. I know that the if-statement inside `value()` is redundant, but in this particular case, will compiler know it to? Nobody has called `has_value()` before. Also, the following piece of code illustrates how concise the implementation of a single function can be: ``` // I use a shortet alias for macro BOOST_OUTCOME_TRYX. // It is not portable, though. It only works on Clang and GCC. #define TRY(ex) BOOST_OUTCOME_TRYX(ex) out::expected<Range, BadInput> parse_range (const std::string& input) { tokenizer numbers_s {input, sep_3}; auto it = numbers_s.begin(), itEnd = numbers_s.end(); int count = std::distance(it, itEnd); if (count != 2) return out::make_unexpected(BadInput{BadInput::no_2_numbers_in_range, count}); Range r {TRY(parse_int(*it++)), TRY(parse_int(*it++))}; if (r.lo > r.hi) return out::make_unexpected(BadInput{BadInput::inverted_range, r.lo, r.hi}); return r; } ``` It is almost as short as if I used exceptions, except for the TRY macro. Note in particular this line: ``` Range r {TRY(parse_int(*it++)), TRY(parse_int(*it++))}; ``` `parse_int()` returns `out::expected<int, BadInput>`.Now, `TRY(parse_int(...))` is an expression and means, "if parse_int() failed immedaitely return function `parse_range` with the same BadInput, otherwise use its `value()` to initialize `r`. What do you think. Am I using the library correctly? Regards, &rzej;

4 7

[outcome] Exception safety guarantees
by Andrzej Krzemienski 30 May '17

30 May '17

Hi All, This is in connection with Vicente's question: what exception safety should we expect of copy assignment of `expected`? Now, this is really funny because we are talking about exception safety in something that is used as a substitute for exceptions. That is, one of the use cases for `expected` is to be able to get rid of exception handling altogether (while still reporting failures). But this fundamental problem, "what state my object is in if this mutating operation fails" is not specific to exceptions. It is speciffic to operations that might fail; and how (and if) they signal failures is of secondary importance. So, let's talk about *failure safety* rather than 'exception safety'. First, let's consider the use case for `expected`, where we want to disable exception handling altogether. This means `T` or `E` cannot throw on any operation. But copy assignment can still fail, right? Or maybe in these domains you are only using trivially-copyable types as `T` and `E`. Or maybe in these domains you never have a need to copy-assign instances of `expected`? Is so, they provide a *no-fail* guarantee, and any implementation of `expected` will be good and offer no-fail guarantee also. Bus if some copying operation on T or E can fail, how is the failure reported? Through a return value? Output parameter? But whatever the answer, we are arriving at the "nested failure" problem: we are processing a (potential) failure report, and this processing fails. What should we do? report the new error condition and ignore the previous? This is very close to a double-exception during stack unwinding. In C++ it std::terminates, other languages ignore the original error, or build a combined error report. All these solutions not satisfactory, and maybe no satisfactory solution exists. I would like to hear an opinion from people who deal with `expected` in exception-disabled environments. On the other extreme, you fave my example with parsing input (which Vicente observed is not parsing, but matching): https://github.com/akrzemi1/__sandbox__/blob/master/outcome_practical_examp… In that case, If I get an exception anywhere (not only upon copying T or E) I want stack to be unwound so far, that all not `expected` objects will remain. So I only care about basic failure guarantee: just let me correctly destroy these objects. In the middle: you have the situation where you copy-assign an `expected` and a copy-constructor of assignment of T or E throws. But where did this exception come from, given that you are using `excepted` for signalling failures? Or are you signalling some failures with exceptions and some with `expected`? And if so, are exceptions not more panic-like? And in that case yu would like to abandon the processing of any `expected`? Anyway, the most difficulties stem from the case where you are storing an E in `expected` and you want to assign an `expected` storing T. You have to first destroy E, and then may not be able to construct a T. My solution to this would be to go to the advice from the first days of forming exception safety guarantees: provide basic guarantee by default, and strong guarantee only if it does not cost too much. We are used to STL containers providing strong assignment, but this is because they are pointers, and they can implement it for free. But does std::touple provide a strong guarantee? No. Do aggregate types provide stron guarantee? No. And can it result in inconsistent data? It can: ``` struct Man { std::string fist_name, last_name; }; Man m1 = {"April", "Jones"}; Man m2 = {"Theresa", "May"}; try { m2 = m1; } catch(...) { } ``` `m2` may end up being {"April", "May"}. And we are taught to write types like this. But if this hapens, the blame is on whoever allowed these objects to outlive the "stack unwinding bubble". So my view, as of today, is not to strive for a strong or even never-empty guarantee. Provide a conditional guarantee, if types T and E don't throw, you get no-fail guarantee. If they do, you only have a basic guarantee: you can destroy, assign to, or maybe call valueless_by_exception(). Nothing more. I think `std::variant` made the optimal choice. And people should code so that instances of `expected` (at least those with T or E throwing on copy/move) should not outlive the "stack unwinding bubbles". Also, note what vector::push_back does when T is non-opyable and its move constructor is potentially throwing: if T's move throws upon reallocation, the behavior is undefined. Regards, &rzej;

8 42

[outcome] Review of Outcome
by Peter Dimov 30 May '17

30 May '17

What follows is my review of the Outcome library. I. DESIGN --------- The general idea of an error handling framework is sound, extremely appealing, and I found it well explained in the documentation. I like the concept very much and agree with many of the design decisions taken throughout. Specifically, constraining the error type to be the fixed std::error_code (or equivalent) and providing a wide accessor interface. I don't think that option<T> should have been included at all. It duplicates optional<T> and has no good reason to exist other than to showcase that the underlying policy-based implementation can produce it. I don't consider expected<T, E> a particularly needed part of the library; the focus should be on result<T> and outcome<T>, the two classes that represent the error handling philosophy on which the library is built. As already stated, I consider the interface of result<T> and outcome<T> a bit too cluttered. Not everyone shares my design preferences for minimal but complete interfaces, so there's legitimate argument to be had over whether, for instance, operator*, operator-> or value_or ought to be included, but the needless duplication between get() and value() is, well, needless. For an initial submission, it's better to err on the side of too little, rather than too much, because it's easy to add later, hard to remove. The empty state has been a source of controversy, and with reason. My initial stance was that it simply needs to go. This however presents a legitimate design question as to what the behavior of the default constructor ought to be. After seeing the suggestions of leaving the object uninitialized there, I now see the empty state as a significantly lesser evil. Having an empty state without the default constructor putting the object into it however is pointless. I do not agree with the direction things have taken of providing a multitude of result classes instead of a single one. Components that are intended to be used in interfaces should provide one, carefully designed option, which encourages what the designer deems best practices. The idea here, assuming that we shoot for standard acceptance at some point, is to provide std::result<T> and have APIs return it, not provide a bag of options and let everyone pick its own thing. (They already do that today and we're not better for it.) I do not agree with making value() unchecked by default. As I explained, one expression of the error handling philosophy behind the library is the following snippet: auto r = function().value(); where function() is noexcept and returns result<T>, whereas the place where the above line appears is a higher level component that signals errors not via error_code, but via exceptions. This one-liner provides the transition in an elegant way; losing it obscures the vision behind the library. Instead of using std::error_code, the library provides its own error_code_extended, complete with an interesting and very useful ring buffer logging mechanism that stores additional information along with the standard code/category values. Specifically, it returns error_code_extended from result<T>::error(). I would separate things a bit further here, attaching the additional information not to a separate error_code_extended class, but to result<> itself. That is, result<>::error() would return std::error_code, and I'd provide a separate accessor, result<>::error_info(), say, that would return the ring buffer entry associated with this result<>. This for me provides a cleaner separation between the basic result<> functionality, and the extended one, although this is a matter of taste. I would also support chaining result<>s by storing the index of the parent ring buffer entry in the current ring buffer entry. This is a straightforward and very useful extension. Instead of providing a macro BOOST_OUTCOME_CATCH_EXCEPTION_TO_RESULT, I would provide result<T>::set_error_from_exception(std::exception const& e); and outcome<T>::set_error_from_exception(std::exception const& e, std::exception_ptr const & p); that would do more or less what the macro does, except the fallback in the second case would be to store p instead of (EINVAL, e.what()). I'd also use make_error_result and make_value_result instead of make_errored_result and make_valued_result, as the former seem more grammatically correct. II. IMPLEMENTATION ------------------ The implementation, from a cursory look, appears of high quality, which is not surprising given that it was in use for two years. The preprocessed header is not easy to review, but the non-preprocessed form is available and amenable to study. Simple examples using outcome<T> compile and work well, although under VS2017 Clang/C2 windows.h is included, which is unfortunate but fixable. The library does not provide a test/Jamfile, which means that as submitted it will not integrate into Boost's testing infrastructure. Given that a Jamfile that performs the equivalent of withmsvc.bat is trivial to write: import testing ; project : requirements <include>../include/boost/outcome/v1.0 ; run unittests.cpp ; the omission is inexplicable. (Further integration into the Boost test matrix would ideally entail splitting unittests.cpp into separate .cpp tests so that success/failure can be tracked independently.) With the above Jamfile, trying to test the library with Cygwin gcc fails with: D:\tmp2\boost-master\libs\outcome\test>b2 toolset=gcc-cxx14 [...] gcc.compile.c++ ..\..\..\bin.v2\libs\outcome\test\unittests.test\gcc-cxx14-6.3.0\debug\unittests.o In file included from ../include/boost/outcome/outcome.hpp:26:0, from unittests.cpp:34: ../include/boost/outcome/outcome_v1.0.hpp:1446:22: fatal error: execinfo.h: No such file or directory #include <execinfo.h> ^ compilation terminated. I realize that Cygwin is not a supported platform, but this is what I have here and this is what I test with, so I figured I'll give it a try. Trying to test with VS 2017 fails with: D:\tmp2\boost-master\libs\outcome\test>b2 toolset=msvc-14.1 [...] compile-c-c++ ..\..\..\bin.v2\libs\outcome\test\unittests.test\msvc-14.1\debug\threading-multi\unittests.obj unittests.cpp unittests.cpp(780): error C3245: 'boost::outcome::_1_0_std_std_9274c0d4::basic_monad<boost::outcome::_1_0_std_std_9274c0d4::policy::monad_policy<udt>>::is_constructible': use of a variable template requires template argument list d:\tmp2\boost-master\libs\outcome\include\boost\outcome\outcome_v1.0.hpp(4271): note: see declaration of 'boost::outcome::_1_0_std_std_9274c0d4::basic_monad<boost::outcome::_1_0_std_std_9274c0d4::policy::monad_policy<udt>>::is_constructible' unittests.cpp(780): fatal error C1903: unable to recover from previous error(s); stopping compilation I get the same failure with /std:c++latest. Testing with the msvc-14.0 toolset works. The library as submitted contains both a preprocessed, fully self-contained, single header named outcome_v1_0.hpp, which is used by default, and a traditional non-preprocessed form that can be chosen with a macro. For the non-preprocessed form to be functional, a git submodule is incorporated by reference: [submodule "include/boost/outcome/boost-lite"] path = include/boost/outcome/boost-lite url = https://github.com/ned14/boost-lite.git branch = master fetchRecurseSubmodules = true ignore = untracked which in turn incorporates two more submodules: [submodule "include/gsl-lite"] path = include/gsl-lite url = https://github.com/martinmoene/gsl-lite.git branch = master fetchRecurseSubmodules = true ignore = untracked [submodule "pcpp"] path = pcpp url = https://github.com/ned14/pcpp.git branch = master fetchRecurseSubmodules = true ignore = untracked The first of these is not by the library author, and the second is a derived work. It is not possible for a Boost release, say, boost_1_65_0.zip, to incorporate git submodules by reference, so there remains a question of what, exactly, is being submitted for inclusion. My attempts to clarify this with the author have proven unsuccessful. I consider this a critical defect of the submission. It is simply not possible for a reviewer to give an opinion whether the submission ought to be included into Boost releases without it being known what, specifically, is being proposed to be included. There is no problem with the library containing implementation details under its directory, but we need to know what these details are. What the library actually needs as dependencies from boost-lite is not much and it's perfectly possible to extract the necessary parts and prepare a self-contained submission. This should have been done prior to the review. The files in the library contain the following: ``` Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License in the accompanying file Licence.txt or at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file Licence.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt) ``` This intends to dual license the library, but as written, it doesn't. What it does is apply the terms of BOTH licenses to distribution and use. This is also a critical defect. If the library is included in a Boost release, it should make it perfectly clear that it's licensed under the Boost license, and not under the intersection of Boost and Apache 2.0. There are several ways to do it, one is to clarify the above to specifically say "ASL2 or BSL, at your option" in the appropriate legalese, another is to license the Boost-included Outcome under BSL and the standalone Outcome under whatever. My recommendation would be to just license the lot under BSL and be done with it. Dual licensing creates unnecessary legal complications and may, from a legal point of view, be more burdensome than just using the BSL. Contributors need to be aware that they are licensing their patches under both licenses, it might not be very clear whether they have been aware, and so on. At times, the library duplicates certain functionality present elsewhere in Boost. I do not consider this a defect. It's a legitimate design decision to avoid intra-Boost dependencies, although the author needs to be aware of the downsides - using Boost components is basically taking advantage of free work instead of having to maintain everything oneself. III. DOCUMENTATION ------------------ I found the documentation perfectly adequate and was able to get a very good outline of how the classes were designed, how they were intended to be used, and what problem they intend to solve. It focuses a bit too much on expected<T, E>, which is not in itself a bad thing but is, for me, not exactly what the library is about. Fixing E to std::error_code is a fundamental (and correct) design decision from which these classes derive much of their utility. The Doxygen-generated reference will not win any awards, but it does the job. It however contains too many implementation details that would ideally either not be there at all, or tucked away in their own separate section. The monadic content is also a bit too high for my taste, and I would prefer if a user of result<> and outcome<> does not encounter the word monad at all. IV. VERDICT ----------- Should Outcome be accepted? In short, eventually. This, at present, is a NO. Ideally, what I would like to see is the library resubmitted in a conventional form, consisting of exactly the files that are intended to go into the libs/outcome directory in boost_1_65_0.zip, licensed under the BSL, only containing the files necessary for the non-preprocessed version of the code to compile and work. In addition, the test/ subdirectory would contain a Jamfile that is ready to integrate into the Boost test matrix.

4 14

[build] conditional run of unit-tests?
by Oliver Kowalke 30 May '17

30 May '17

In the unit tests I want conditionally run some unit-tests - depending on property <target-os>- On Windows systems the unit-test should apply/build with property <context- impl>winfib and on POSIX (non-Windows) <context-impl>ucontext. The Jamfile below doesn't work (Windows version build on POSIX) - xould I get a hint how to fix it (couldn't find a reference of rule 'run'). Oliver [ run test_callcc.cpp : : : <context-impl>fcontext [ requires cxx11_auto_declarations cxx11_constexpr cxx11_defaulted_functions cxx11_final cxx11_hdr_thread cxx11_hdr_tuple cxx11_lambdas cxx11_noexcept cxx11_nullptr cxx11_rvalue_references cxx11_template_aliases cxx11_thread_local cxx11_variadic_templates ] : test_callcc_fcontext ] [ run test_callcc.cpp : : : <context-impl>ucontext [ requires cxx11_auto_declarations cxx11_constexpr cxx11_defaulted_functions cxx11_final cxx11_hdr_thread cxx11_hdr_tuple cxx11_lambdas cxx11_noexcept cxx11_nullptr cxx11_rvalue_references cxx11_template_aliases cxx11_thread_local cxx11_variadic_templates ] : test_callcc_ucontext ] [ run test_callcc.cpp : : : <context-impl>winfib [ requires cxx11_auto_declarations cxx11_constexpr cxx11_defaulted_functions cxx11_final cxx11_hdr_thread cxx11_hdr_tuple cxx11_lambdas cxx11_noexcept cxx11_nullptr cxx11_rvalue_references cxx11_template_aliases cxx11_thread_local cxx11_variadic_templates ] : test_callcc_winfib : <target-os>windows ] ;

2 2

Re: [boost] [outcome] Possible extensions/changes to std::experimental::expected
by Vicente J. Botet Escriba 30 May '17

30 May '17

Hi, I believe that this private mail I sent to Niall could concern the Boost community and the Outcome review. While the post concerns the proposed std::experimental::expected, this is applicable as well to Outcome. I've added a more points at the end and some additional information about possible open points for std expected. Le 24/05/2017 à 01:04, Vicente J. Botet Escriba a écrit : > > Hi, > > > After better understanding of the goals of Boost.Outcome I would like > to share two possible extension of std::experimental::expected > > > 1. Implicit conversion when the errors are convertible and the type is > the same. > > I believe this is a missing constructor. > > EXPLICIT expected<T, E>::expected(expected<T, G>); // E is > convertible from G > > I see that the other constructor is also useful > > EXPLICIT expected<T, E>::expected(expected<U, E>); // T is > convertible from U > > and so > > EXPLICIT expected<T, E>::expected(expected<U, G>); // T is > convertible from U and E is convertible from G > > We could as well have an adapt function that transforms expected error explicitly to do error propagation adapt : (E->G) x expected<T,E> -> expected<T,G> (E->G) stands for a function that takes an E and return a G. > 2. variadic expected<Y, E1, ..., En> > > I suggested this already in revision 2 of the Expected standard proposal. > > expected<Y, E1, ..., En> should be something like variant<Y, E1, ..., > En> but with some syntactic sugar. > > > expected<T, E1, ...., En> could be EXPLICIT convertible from > expected<T, G1, ...., Gm> as far as for all Gj we find a unique Ek > that is convertible to. > We can refine the subsumption relation this could take too long to the compiler (as the previous relation has quadratic complexity as Andrzej reported to me). > > I believe this will cover exactly what outcome covers and in addition > it will let open the error types used by the user. > > It acts as a exception specification, which we have abandoned in C++11. > > expected<T, E1, ...., En> f(); > > T f() throw (E1, ...., En); > > > We can consider that this is bad, as we have abandoned it. > > Anyway, I think that expected<T, E1, ...., En> is a good > generalization of the proposed outcome<T> where E1 could be none_t, E2 > could be error_code and E3 is exception_ptr. > > At the end users could use variant<E, E1, ..., En> are return code, so maybe we could to make their life easier. > > In this way we could have > > template <class T> > > using option = expected<T, nullopt_t>; > > Note that this is different to std::optional as the default is T not > nullopt_t :( > I'm not proposing it. Just to say that this could be a possibility for option. > > template <class T> > > using result = expected<T, error_code_extended>; // and possibly none. > > template <class T> > > using outcome = expected<T, none_t, error_code_extended, exception_ptr>; > > > I believe we would need the syntactic sugar as expected<T, > variant<E1,... En>> should have a lot of user code noise. > In addition it will be less efficient than variant<T, E1,... En>. > > E.g. expected<T, variant<E1,... En>> should be convertible from > unexpected_type<G> as soon a one of the Ek is convertible from G. > > I believe variant<E1,... En> is not convertible from variant<G1,... > Gm> under the conditions described above, but maybe this should be the > case. > Andrzej told to me that this is already the case for optional<T>, but I've not found yet on which paper this was added? > > Of course, the never empty warranties could be supported only if the > types Ek allow it and we need to change the standard to ensure it for > exception_ptr. > > > I will not have time to implement a POC for 2, but I believe I could > do it for 1 before Toronto. Anyway I believe it will be worth > discussing these 2 extensions. > > > Best, > > Vicente > > > P.S. EXPLICIT above has the sense given in the standard. > 3. uninitialized default constructed expected<T,E> I know this could be conflictual, but there are a some advantages to doing it. We don't spend time initializing with something we will assign later. This state corresponds to the moved-from state. Initializing it by default to T() is not better initializing to E(). Is expected<Date, error_code> default constructible even if Date is not? Currently it is not the case. There are of course liabilities. We have now the possibility for uninitialized variables, but static analysis tools will help here. 4. About comparisons Outcome doesn't implement comparisons between Outcomes. He pretend that we don't need them. In addition the mix of comparisons and implicit conversion give us some surprising cases as described in Andrzej blog. [1] A gotcha with Optional - https://akrzemi1.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/a-gotcha-with-optional We have that std::future is not comparable (as exception_ptr is not comparable). Instead of comparison we could specialize std::less<> if we want to use them in ordered containers. What others think? 5. About implicit conversion from T The implicit conversion from T to expected<T,E> is a consequence of wanting that expected<T,E> should behave like a T. But this is not right. A expected<T,E> is not a T. We have in some way that expected<T,E> is explicitly constructible from E bu the use of make_unexpected(e). If we had only and explicit constructor from T the code will be much more uniform. Either you build it with a modified make_expected or with make_unexpected. In my opinion the implicit conversion from T to expected<T> is a mistake. 5. About the exception to throw std::experimental::expected throw bad_expected_access<E>. I adopted the design of optional and bad_optional_access We could have as well a bad_expected_access_base class as Outcome has. My question is why don't throw directly E? Some are requesting a way to get a specific exception from E, but either there is one exception that works for all and we can set it using some kind of trait or we need to add a trait parameter to expected to the the mapping :( Do we really want this to be configurable? 6. Implicit conversion from E outcome::expected<T,E> outcome::expected<T,E> is implicitly convertible from E when there is no risk of ambiguity. std::expected<T,E> is implicitly convertible from unexpected<E>. What people thing we should have? In Boost? in the standard? Vicente

5 21

[build] [config] check_target_builds and feature.subfeature composition
by Edward Diener 30 May '17

30 May '17

The Boost library config uses the check_target_builds rule to provide build time feature testing. Other Boost libraries use config checks in their own build and test jamfiles. I have found that this works reliably when a particular toolset is used in a normal manner. However when using the feature.subfeature and feature.compose rules to extend the toolset-version designation with a subfeature, such that the toolset designation now becomes toolset-version-subfeature, the use of the check_target_builds rule does not work as expected. In particular the individual check_target_builds rule results are put into a subdirectory based on the toolset-version and not based on the toolset-version-subfeature when toolset subfeature composition is used. I also suspect that the cached value reflects setup. This causes wrong results in tests where the toolset designation uses subfeatures, and a library's jamfile is using config and/or predef checks. As an example My toolset designation looks like: using gcc : 6.3 : some_path ; feature.subfeature toolset gcc : cxxstd : c03 c11 c14 c17 : optional composite propagated ; feature.compose <toolset-gcc:cxxstd>c03 : <cxxflags>-std=c++03 ; feature.compose <toolset-gcc:cxxstd>c11 : <cxxflags>-std=c++11 ; feature.compose <toolset-gcc:cxxstd>c14 : <cxxflags>-std=c++14 ; feature.compose <toolset-gcc:cxxstd>c17 : <cxxflags>-std=c++1z ; A library's test looks like: import ../../config/checks/config : requires ; run some_test.cpp : : : [ requires cxx11_hdr_forward_list ] ; If I run some some_test with toolset=gcc-6.3-c03, the config result for checking if forward list is supported is put into a subdirectory reflecting the toolset-version while the test result will be put into a subdirectory reflecting the toolset-version-subfeature. Subsequently if I run some_test with toolset=gcc-6.3-c11 the config result is taken from the subdirectory reflect the toolset-version even though whether the forward list is supported or not depends very much on the subfeature I am designating as part of the toolset. This naturally causes incorrect results for the test. Is this a known problem ? Is it a problem with Boost Build or is it a problem with how config uses the check_target_builds rule ? I have run into this problem extensively in my testing once I started to use the feature.subfeature ability of Boost Build.

5 9

[outcome] Review of Outcome
by Emil Dotchevski 29 May '17

29 May '17

I. Design There is a need in C++ for dealing with failures without using exceptions. This is not so much driven by actual inefficiencies (as opposed to perceived inefficiencies) of exception handling, but by the fact that not all C++ code in existence is exception-safe, and the fact that some C++ programmers work in environments where exception handling is disabled, as ill-advised such a decision may be. In my opinion the library should drop option<T> and result<T> altogether and should be reduced to outcome<T> only, which can be empty, or hold a T, or hold an exception (but not error code, see below.) This is critical for a library that aims to provide a _common_ general mechanism for dealing with failures in interfaces; providing a rich set of alternatives works against that goal. (It seems desirable to get rid of the empty state too but the discussions during the review period show that this might cause more problems than it solves.) Secondly, it is not a good idea to use error codes or any other value as means to dispatch on different kinds of failures because semantically such dispatch should be static: there is some _code_ which detects the error, and there is some other _code_ that needs to bind it and handle it. This is one reason why in C++ catch dispatches by the static type of the exception objects, not by some exception.what() value. Further, using static types to communicate different kinds of failures allows users to recognize and handle an entire class of errors by means of implicit type conversions, by organizing error types in a hierarchy. For example: struct io_error: virtual std::runtime_error { }; struct read_error: virtual io_error { }; struct write_error: virtual io_error { }; struct file_error: virtual io_error { }; struct file_read_error: virtual file_error, virtual read_error { }; struct parse_error: virtual std::runtime_error { }; struct syntax_error: virtual parse_error { }; With this hierarchy, we can use read_error to handle any kind of read errors (not just file-related), file_error to handle any kind of file failures (read or write), etc. That said, outcome<T> should also be able to transport values, however their purpose should not be to tell _what_ went wrong, but to provide additional information. It must be stressed that such additional information should be decoupled from the classification of the error. For example: outcome<parsed_data> parse_file( char const * file_name ); The above function reads a file and returns some parsed_data -or- stores an exception object in the outcome. What are the possible failures? It may be a file_read_error, but also types unrelated to I/O like std::bad_alloc or syntax_error. Regardless of the type of the failure, the outcome object should be able to transport the file name because it is relevant no matter _what_ went wrong. Incidentally, the need to transport contextual information independently of the error classification exists when throwing exceptions as well, so if outcome<T> can hold exception objects (and allow users to dispatch on their static type, like catch does), the exception objects themselves can take care of holding any additional information, for example by using Boost Exception. II. Implementation In general the library should not shy away from integrating with common Boost facilities in an effort to appeal to people who hate Boost. A Boost library should primarily target Boost users and address their concerns. This includes the testing framework as well as boost/config.hpp where applicable (it is okay to not always include boost/config.hpp, but it should be included to get things like BOOST_NO_EXCEPTIONS and other configuration macros.) The library should use BOOST_ASSERT, though I don't see a problem with not #including boost/assert.hpp if BOOST_ASSERT is already defined (by the user). The library should use BOOST_THROW_EXCEPTION to throw. Like in the case of BOOST_ASSERT, it's fine to not #include boost/throw_exception.hpp if BOOST_THROW_EXCEPTION is already defined. That said, avoiding coupling with individual Boost submodules is desirable in general. Also there is no problem with providing facilities to avoid all Boost coupling in order to support non-Boost users. III. Documentation The documentation makes broad claims about the inefficiency of exception handling which seem to be motivated by a desire to appeal to programmers who hold such beliefs. There is no need to make such generally untrue claims in order to justify the need for Outcome. Other than that the documentation does the job. IV. Verdict Should Outcome be accepted into Boost? NO This obviously applies only to the current state of the library.

3 4

[move] BOOST_RV_REF(TypeWithoutMoveEmulation) parameters
by Groke, Paul 29 May '17

29 May '17

Hi, I'd like to use BOOST_RV_REF, with both C++98 and C++11 compilers, for some sink-functions, with types that are not "move-enabled". I.e. types that the sink can "consume"/"move from" by other means (swapping, calling .release(), ...). Some of them I can - eventually - change to be fully move-enabled, others I can not (e.g. STL classes). I just assumed that this was possible by simply passing the argument with boost::move(arg). Apparently it's not though, because boost::move will return a plain T& for types without move emulation. For the time being I have defined my own helper function template "move_any" that will always return a rv<T>&. Is there such a function that I missed? And if not, would you think it'd make sense to provide one (I certainly think it would)? Regards, Paul Groke

3 5

[outcome] On the design and documentation
by Thomas Heller 28 May '17

28 May '17

Hi Niall (and also probably Vicente) I was following the discussion about expected/outcome/result very closely and I can absolutely see the usefulness of such a library (I explicitly discarded option here). I am not sure if this post should count as a review, mainly because I disagree with the fundamental design decisions (that includes expected as defined in D0323R2) and therefor would cast my vote as in "not ready yet", I hope I can convey my points below. First of all, I don't agree with the strong (conceptual) relationship between optional (be it boost:: or std::experimental) in such a way that expected is a generalization of it. From what I understand, the purpose of expected/outcome/ result is to be used as a mechanism to return the result of a function. As such it should also expose the semantics of it. Fortunately, we already have a (asynchronous) return object standardized (std::future). And this is my basic disagreement here: Why not model expected in the lines of future? With the main points being: - expected being movable only - expected<T,E>::value() should always return by value and invalidate this. - (I would really prefer the color .get though ;)) So the question to Vicente/Niall is: what is the motivation to make it "optional-ish"? Do we have use cases which make this design undesirable? By having these constraints, expected of course needs to have an uninitialized state. As such we'd have the three observers: valid(): true when has_value() || has_error(), false otherwise (for example default constructed, invalidated), has_value() and has_error(). Second, I think Niall raised a valid about outcome being a framework for interoperability (completely orthogonal to the first point). However, I totally miss this from the proposed library, most pressing are non intrusive mechanisms. For that purpose I postulate, that a mechanism to transform between different unexpected results, that is: various error codes etc. However, for that to work, one would of course need a properly defined concept, for example, as Vicente suggested "EitherValue", and a mechanism to coerce one error type into another, maybe through ADL, or traits specialization or whatever. With that in place, one could simply define the different EitherValue types, there is no need that everything needs to be in the form of "basic_XXX". For the library under review, this would be perfectly sufficient: template <typename T, typename E> class expected; template <typename T> using result = expected<T, extended_error_info>; template <typename T> using outcome = expected<T, variant<extended_error_info, exception_ptr>>; That is, given that we have either a value or unexpected, we can convert expected<T, E1> to expected<U, E2> if T is convertible to U and E1 "coercable" (with whichever mechanism) to E2. If we then have a generic mechanism to get from a (possibly user defined "E") to an exception, I completely miss the point of the outcome template. Furthermore, I believe that .value/.error should really have a narrow contract, that is that it is UB to call those functions if the respective types are not held (easy to catch this in a debug build...). Why? Probably just a micro optimization, but consider the canonical usage: auto r = some_function_returning_expected(...); if (r.has_value()) // Do something with the value else // An error occurred, PANIC In both branches, we know exactly what's in there ... so why check again when getting the state out? I don't get the "reinterpret_cast" argument. I am one of the persons that believe that UB is a necessary evil for some optimizations... All optimizations can then easily be put as implementation details and the generic expected<T, E> will probably suffice for most use cases, for everything else, we can implement special types which conform to our concepts and implement the error conversion mechanisms. This will most likely also work with different APIs/ABIs. Last but not least, I wanted to give some feedback on the proposed Boost.Outcome documentation. At the very least, I find it highly confusing. When I open its "landing page", I get no idea about the following: - What is the purpose of the library? - Why/when should I use it? - What should I look into next? >From the front page, it looks like a implementation of expected, but only talks about the outcome template, it is very hard to find the documentation for the other three types result, outcome and option. Yet, the documentation explicitly warns about it being unstable and suggests to use its refinements. Useful information is spread across the whole documentation, there is no easy way to find the requirements on T or E. The reference section is anything but complete and doesn't convey any useful information. I did not really look at the actual implementation of the proposed library. I cloned the git repository and had a quick glance, but to be honest, I got lost very early, I have no idea where to start looking first. Cheers, Thomas

6 15

[outcome] outcome without empty state?
by Andrzej Krzemienski 28 May '17

28 May '17

Niall, What do you think about the following alternate interface of outcome types? 1. Remove option<T> altogether. 2. result<T> (and outcome<T>) does not have a separate empty state. 3. A default-constructed result<T> is initialized as if `result<T>{error_code_extended{}}`. 4. Function r.empty() is implemented as `r.has_error() && !error()`. 5. Framework requires that type E in `expected<T, E>` is default-constructible, and its default-constructed value represents no error condition (already the case for exception_ptr, error_code). The rationale behind this is my assumption that `option<T>` is not as useful as the other types. (Or can you give an example to the contrary?) That there was no initial business need for an empty state, and the examples that illustrate its usefulness are just exploring how we can make use of it now that it is there. (Or am I wrong here?) I noticed a number of people report negative feedback about this empty state. Getting rid of it would take result<T> closer to "either T or reason for failure". What do you think? Regards, &rzej;

6 27

[review] Review of Outcome (starts Fri-19-May)
by charleyb123 . 28 May '17

28 May '17

Hi Everyone, The formal review of Niall Douglas' Outcome library starts today (Fri-19-May) and continues until Sun-28-May. Your participation is encouraged, as the proposed library is uncoupled and focused, and reviewers don't need to be domain experts to appreciate the potential usefulness of the library and to propose improvements. Everyone needs (and has suffered) error handling, and can compose an opinion on that topic. Outcome is a header-only C++14 library providing expressive and type-safe ultra-lightweight error handling, suitable for low-latency code bases. Key features: *- Makes using std::error_code from C++11's <system_error> more convenient and safe *- Provides high-quality implementation of proposed std::expected<T,E> (on C++20 standards track) *- Good focus on low-latency (with tests and benchmarks) *- Error-handling algorithmic composition with-or-without C++ exceptions enabled *- No dependencies (not even on Boost) This review is timely, as C++17 brings us std::optional<T>. The upcoming std::expected<T,E> (an implementation provided in Outcome) is a generalization of std::optional<T> that provides a <success|fail> value, where the unhappy result is a 'std::error_code' or an instance of "your-chosen-error-type". The library further provides 'outcome<T,error-code,exception-ptr>' for handling <success|error|exception> to safely wrap throwing APIs. Documentation: https://ned14.github.io/boost.outcome/index.html ACCU 2017 talk including design rationale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVofgKH-uu4 GitHub: https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome Latest tarball: https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/releases/download/ boost_peer_review3/boost.outcome-v1.0-source-201705111650.tar.xz Note: Tarball might be easiest; but if you want to clone from GitHub directly, after the clone you should run the following command to get the source zip exactly: git submodule update --init --recursive Please post your comments and review to the boost mailing list (preferably), or privately to the Review Manager (to me ;-). Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: - 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? And most importantly: - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? For more information about Boost Formal Review Process, see: http://www.boost.org/community/reviews.html Thank you very much for your time and efforts. --charley

17 70

[review] Review of Outcome (ends Sun-28-May)
by charleyb123 . 27 May '17

27 May '17

Hi, Everyone, First a (very-)big "thank-you!" to all participating in the ongoing (and vigorous) debate and review for the Outcome library. The spirited discussion touches on tricky issues for composition and error handling (with and without C++ exceptions enabled), where the community is clearly searching for best convention and common ground. Thus far: (a)- some 300+ emails discussing Outcome (and more emails off-list) (b)- participation from: *- Andrzej Krzemienski *- D25fe0be *- Deniz Bahadir *- Emil Dotchevski *- Gavin Lambert *- Glen Fernandes *- Gottlob Frege (Tony) *- Hartmut Kaiser *- Ion Gaztanaga *- Jonathan Muller *- Niall Douglas *- Paul Bristow *- Pete Bartlett *- Peter Dimov *- Robert Ramey *- Thomas Heller *- Vicente J. Botet Escriba *- Vinnie Falco *- ...(apologies if I've missed anyone) (c)- Some points-of-discussion relate to: *- Outcome efficiency (copy/move) on today’s compilers *- Outcome speed/overhead (exceptions) *- Outcome purpose/motivation *- Outcome Tutorials, documentation *- Outcome “formal-empty-state”, default-initialization *- Outcome compiling, compiler support *- Outcome ABI, namespace usage, use of preprocessor *- Outcome alternative APIs *- std::expected proposal, possible changes (d)- Reviews to date (sent publicly to the list): *- Paul Bristow -- accept, conditional (Tue-23-May) *- Deniz Bahadir -- accept, unconditional (Wed-24-May) *- Thomas Heller -- (almost a review), ?reject, "not-ready-yet?" (Wed-24-May) (e)- Significant other discussion also contributes to evaluation of Outcome as a Boost library. However, I encourage further reviews to make clear any conclusions from these discussions that I might have missed. The review continues for several more days, ending Sun-28-May. Please consider posting a review to the boost mailing list, or privately to the Review Manager (to me). Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: - 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? And most importantly: - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? For more information about Boost Formal Review Process, see: http://www.boost.org/community/reviews.html Thank you very much for your time and efforts. --charley

8 16

Detail headers moved
by Belcourt, Kenneth 26 May '17

26 May '17

Hi, I’m trying to build Boost.Graph and running into missing header files that used to live in boost/detail and now live elsewhere. Here’s a couple of examples of headers that moved and the code that still expects to find them there: detail/container_fwd.hpp libs/functional/include/boost/functional/hash/extensions.hpp: #include <boost/detail/container_fwd.hpp> libs/lambda/include/boost/lambda/detail/operator_return_type_traits.hpp: #include "boost/detail/container_fwd.hpp" libs/phoenix/include/boost/phoenix/stl/algorithm/detail/is_std_list.hpp: #include <boost/detail/container_fwd.hpp> libs/phoenix/include/boost/phoenix/stl/algorithm/detail/is_std_map.hpp: #include <boost/detail/container_fwd.hpp> libs/phoenix/include/boost/phoenix/stl/algorithm/detail/is_std_set.hpp: #include <boost/detail/container_fwd.hpp> detail/indirect_traits.hpp libs/iterator/include/boost/iterator/detail/facade_iterator_category.hpp: #include <boost/detail/indirect_traits.hpp> libs/iterator/include/boost/iterator/indirect_iterator.hpp: #include <boost/detail/indirect_traits.hpp> It seems that indirect_traits.hpp was moved from detail into python/detail, and container_fwd.hpp into container. Just curious but was it intentional to make many Boost libraries depend on Python through boost/iterator/iterator_facade.hpp? Noel

2 4

[outcome] some problems compiling
by Andrzej Krzemienski 26 May '17

26 May '17

So, I am trying to run my first test program with Boost.Outcome. The library fails to compile with GCC 6.3.0 on MinGW on Windows 7. I have filed the issue: https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/36 But also, I can see in file <boost/outcome/outcome_v1.0.hpp>, lines 1267 to 1279 ``` #ifdef __cplusplus namespace { #endif typedef struct _IMAGEHLP_LINE64 { unsigned long SizeOfStruct; void *Key; unsigned long LineNumber; wchar_t *FileName; unsigned long long int Address; } IMAGEHLP_LINE64, *PIMAGEHLP_LINE64; ``` 1. Why do you check for __cplusplus? Is it a copy-and-paste of some Windows headers? 2. This class and subsequent functions are defined in anonymous namespace. This means they are redefined and recompiled in each translation unit, and remain a per TU definition. Is that intent? Regards, &rzej;

5 11

Re: [boost] [outcome] Possible extensions/changes to std::experimental::expected
by Andrzej Krzemienski 26 May '17

26 May '17

It looks like part of the discussion accidentally went into a private conversation. So, here we are back. 2017-05-25 22:39 GMT+02:00 Vicente J. Botet Escriba < vicente.botet(a)wanadoo.fr>: > Le 25/05/2017 à 18:40, Andrzej Krzemienski a écrit : > > > > 2017-05-25 17:32 GMT+02:00 Vicente J. Botet Escriba < > vicente.botet(a)wanadoo.fr>: > >> Le 25/05/2017 à 13:18, Andrzej Krzemienski via Boost a écrit : >> >>> 2017-05-25 9:44 GMT+02:00 Vicente J. Botet Escriba via Boost < >>> boost(a)lists.boost.org>: >>> >>> We have now the possibility for uninitialized variables, but static >>> analysis tools will help here. >>> >>> So, more specifically, I understand that you propose the following: >>> >>> - Default constructor works: no T or no E is construced (similar what >>> outcome<> does) >>> >> I was not aware of this. Do you know that from this reference >> documentation? >> >> constexpr outcome () noexcept(is_nothrow_default_constructible) >> Default constructor. >> > > Well, I just assumed that since outcome<> has this empty state, it is > exactly for the purpose of giving semantics to the default constructor. But > now that you have asked, I looked at the docs. They say nothing about what > happens in the default constructor. I tried to look in the code, but was > confused with these policies. So, I just run a small test program, and yes: > default constructor creates an empty state. > > Niall, please could you add an issue in order to document default > constructors (if it doesn't already exists). > This is already logged in https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/26 > > >> >> Sorrty, I couldn't interpret it as you. >> But, if it is the case, yes, as outcome does. >> >>> - You can assing to and and destroy such an objetc (similar what >>> outcome<> does) >>> >> I don't catch what you mean here. Are you referring to the conversion >> between expected with convertible value type and error types? >> > > No, I am saying that the following should work: > outcome<T> o; // default-constructed > o = some_outcome<T>(); // this should be safe to execute > > This works already with expected even if it doesn't defaults to empty. > Ok, and you expect it to continue to work. > > >> - You will probably need to add an observer function that checks for >>> this singular state, like `is_singular()`. If not for anything else >>> it >>> would be used for assisting the static analysis tools. (again, >>> similar what >>> outcome<> does) >>> >> No. There will be no such observer. This is essential. There is no >> visible empty state. >> Or do you consider that chrono::duration should tell you if it was >> initialized or not? >> The user know if it is initialized or not, but there is no tool to check >> it. >> This could be against safe programming, but we are here in C++ and we >> should provide first the raw tools and then build on top of them when we >> want more. >> >>> - other observer functions (has_value(), value(), has_error(), >>> error()) >>> cause UB when `is_singular() == true. (this is the only difference >>> from >>> outcome<>) >>> >> Not the only one. >> outcome fixes its error types. I'm proposing an extension to the current >> expected so that it can take care of the Outcome use cases and needs. >> >>> >>> Did I understand your intentions correctly? >>> >> Not completly. I don't want an observer that tells me, attention you have >> not initialized your variable, or you have moved from. This is essential. > > > Very daring. It would be easier to accept if you could show a tool that is > capable of statically analying this kind of "used unintialized" bug for > `expected`. > > > Static analysis to check if uninitialized variables are used (read) works > very well already . I don't remember if it si with clang-tidy that I have > seen this kind of warnings. > Ok. Now I am thinking, another thing you can do, is to internally store something like varient<T, Y, Empty> but do not expose this Empty in the interface. Instead, rewrite observer functions like this: ``` bool has_value() const { if (BOOST_UNLIKELY(_is_in_empty_state())) __builtin_unreachable(); return _is_in_valued_state; } ```

3 12

[outcome] expected<T&>, result<T&>
by Andrzej Krzemienski 25 May '17

25 May '17

Niall, Are Boost.Outcome monads intended to work with references (at least lvalue references)? If I try to compile the following program that tries to use an `result<T&>` (on GCC 6.3.1): ``` #include <boost/outcome.hpp> namespace out = BOOST_OUTCOME_V1_NAMESPACE; int g_count = 0; out::result<int&> get_ref() { return out::result<int&>(g_count); } int main () {} ``` I get lots of compiler errors. But the messages ("constructor cannot be overloaded") indicate that it was just an omission and not a design decision. If I try it with `outcome::expected` I also get these messages, but I also get a static assert saying that as per LWG decision T must be default constructible. Vicente, does this mean you cannot use `std::expected` to return references? Regards, &rzej;

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Re: [boost] [outcome] expected vs. result
by Niall Douglas 25 May '17

25 May '17

> It would be very helpful to have a documentation for comparing all types, > expected, option, outcome, and result, showing the use cases and best > practices. I have some hard time to understand what one can do and the > other can not and in which cases I should prefer one. One thing very obvious in this review so far is how overwraught it has made that choice seem. I think as soon as you start writing some code using Outcome, you'll find the choice flows naturally. Using this library in your code is far, far, far easier and more intuitive than this review makes it seem. They are very simple objects, and very easy to use. Often the simpler the object, the more bikeshedding and strong opinions and noise result. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

3 2

[outcome] Ternary logic -- need an example
by Andrzej Krzemienski 25 May '17

25 May '17

Niall Douglas wrote: > Finally, if you did have some special E value to mean empty, you would > have to write special checks for it in Outcome in order to give it the > stronger abort type semantics it has - if you don't have it being given > alternative semantics, then there is no point in having an empty state. > If you are writing special checks, then you might as well just have a > formal empty state in the first place. > > This argument can be generalised into the argument in favour of ternary > logics over binary logics. Sure, 90% of the time binary logics are > sufficient, but binary is a subset of ternary. And *you don't have to > use* the "other" state in a ternary logic just because it's there. Just > don't use it, so long as its implementation signals its unintentional > usage with a very loud bang, it's a safe design. > > (There is an argument that Outcome's "very loud bang" isn't loud enough. > I'd be pleased to hear feedback on that) Niall, you mention "ternary logic" here, and I guess it has to do with 'module' `tribool` exposed by Outcome library. But I do not believe I have seen in the documentation (I mean the tutorial section) how I am supposed to use it, and how it improves my programs. Or I might have just missed it. Could you give me an example? Regards, &rzej;

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Re: [boost] Boost.Outcome review - First questions
by Hartmut Kaiser 25 May '17

25 May '17

Andrzej, Thanks for attempting to additionally clarify what you said before. > Again, sorry to reply on behalf of Niall, but it is my description that > might have caused the confusion. I'm glad you try to answer my questions as I know I will not get any from Niall directly. > There is still this case where you want to avoid exceptions in one part of > the program, but still use exceptions in other parts of the program. For > one example. in one "task" you launch another task with a callback > function `f`. You might want to throw from `f` and this is valid. But the > framework for launching tasks cannot afford to spill exceptions, so they > have to catch and somehow transport the exception (e.g., by exception_ptr) > then in the other task, you might want to re-convert to an exception. > (something similar to what std::future does.) I understand what you're saying, std::future needs a (conceptual) variant<T, exception_ptr> to store its state. So if I hear you correctly, outcome::expected<T, exception_ptr> could be used for that. > Other situation, is when you are using a third-party library, which throws > exceptions. You want to wrap it into a component that does not throw. > Boost.Outcome also supports in a convenient way this transition from and > to exceptions. Ok. > Also, maybe you will find of use the following example that tries to > illustrate the basic use case of the library: <snipped code example> Thanks, I think I've seen this in the docs. All of this could have been done with a variant<T, some_error_type> without changing the semantics, yes? So I guess the next question I would like to ask is: what is the benefit of using outcome::result<T> over std::optional<T>, and outcome::expected<T, E> over std::variant<T, E>? Regards Hartmut --------------- http://boost-spirit.com http://stellar.cct.lsu.edu

2 3

Re: [boost] Boost.Outcome review - First questions
by Hartmut Kaiser 25 May '17

25 May '17

Andrzej, > Thanks, I think I've seen this in the docs. All of this could have been > done with a variant<T, some_error_type> without changing the semantics, > yes? > > So I guess the next question I would like to ask is: what is the benefit > of using outcome::result<T> over std::optional<T>, and > outcome::expected<T, E> over std::variant<T, E>? > > At some conceptual level, yes, `outcome::expected<T, E>` is like > `variant<T, E>`. Two other types from this library could also be described > in terms of variant: > `outocome::result<T>` is like `variant<T, outcome::error_code_extended, > empty_state>` > `outocome::outcome<T>` is like `variant<T, outcome::error_code_extended, > std::exception_ptr, empty_state>` > Technically, you could use variant everywhere, but the tools from > Boost.Outcome offer an interface tailored to the use cases, loike > contextual conversion to bool. Also, a more focused scope than variant > offers room for optimizations. All of those could be equally well provided by a set of free-standing generic functions. There is no need to introduce yet another inventory type. As said elsewhere, a 'using expected<T, E> = variant<T, E>;' would do us the same in this case. > Having this `empty_state` is under debate. I hope at least the empty state gets dropped on the floor, even if I think the whole expected<> business is overkill and introducing a minimally necessary set of monadic helper functions (Vicente mentioned PossibleValue, MonadError, etc.) would be sufficient in many ways. With those functions a simple variant<T, E> would give us all we need. Thanks! Regards Hartmut --------------- http://boost-spirit.com http://stellar.cct.lsu.edu

1 0

Boost.Outcome review - First questions
by Vicente J. Botet Escriba 25 May '17

25 May '17

Hi, I've tried to read the tutorial, but it is too long for my taste. I will try it later on :( A minor issue * "As inferred in the example code cases earlier, you can check if an |expected<T, E>| has an expected value via a simple test for boolean true or more explicitly via |.has_value()| before retrieving the value using |.value()|." This is not correct. It is correct for the de-reference operator, but .value() don't needs any check with .has_value(). Instead of some deviation, I would expect a report of all deviations and a rationale explaining why it is better to do this way. # "Types |T| and |E| cannot be constructible into one another. This is a fundamental design choice in basic_monad to significantly reduce compile times so it won't be fixed." * "Note though that |expected<void, void>| is permitted (which is legal in the LEWG proposal)." What are the compile time cost |associated the std::experimental::expected<T,E>? | I don't see what |expected<void, void> could mean. | # |unexpected_type<E>| is implemented as an |expected<void, E>| and it lets the basic_monad machinery do the implicit conversion to some |expected<T, E>| through the less representative to more representative conversion rules. Note that our Expected passes the LEWG Expected test suite just fine, so you probably won't notice this implementation detail in your code. The test of my POC implementation couldn't be complete, so this is not a sign of compatibility. Which operation allow to convert expected<void,E> to expected<T,E> and what is the expected behavior if expected<void,E> has a value? # Our |expected<T, E>| defaults E to |std::error_code| rather than |std::error_condition| (the LEWG proposal fixes this in P0323R2). I don't have a strong opinion on which default would be the best. As you suggested, I have added it to the next revision. We don't implement the ordering and hashing operator overloads due to https://akrzemi1.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/a-gotcha-with-optional/. The fact the LEWG proposal does as currently proposed is a defect (it will be discussed by LEWG with P0323R2 in Toronto). As for optional this could be considered a defect. The question is if we want expected to differen from the optional interface. If we considered it a defect, I don't believe that we should remove comparison, but IMHO we should make the constructor from T explicit. I don't expect the committee to fix this for expected and let the issue for optional. We will see. # We don't implement |make_expected_from_call()| as we think it highly likely to be removed from the next version of the proposal due to it conferring little value. This is possible and the function can be implemented very easily. I can live with and without it. # Our |make_expected()| and |make_unexpected()| functions deviate significantly as we believe the LEWG ones to be defective in various ways. This topic will be discussed in Toronto and reconciliation later is highly likely. Please, could you tell how those are defective so that we can fix them? Otherwise I don't see what we could discuss in Toronto. # Our |value_or()| member functions pass through the reference rather than returning by value (we don't understand why the LEWG proposal does except that |std::optional<T>| does, which itself is a bad design choice and it should be changed). Well, what is the advantage to returning by reference? Rather than |void|, our |value_type| and |error_type| typedefs are set to a descriptive compiler error generating type if the Expected is configured with |void|. If you want to know if no type was configured, use the static constexpr bools at |expected<T, E>::has_value_type| and |expected<T, E>::has_error_type| or use |raw_value_type| and |raw_error_type|. The reason for this deviation is to make metaprogramming using Outcome's transports much easier and less error prone. Sorry. I don't understand what is the issue. Could you elaborate? # Our Expected always defines the default, copy and move constructors even if the the type configured is not capable of it. That means |std::is_copy_constructible| etc returns true when they should return false. The reason why is again to significantly improve compile times by hugely reducing the number of templates which need to be instantiated during routine basic_monad usage, and again this won't be fixed. Instead use the static constexpr bools at: Defining these operation when they can not be implemented means that you cannot use SFINAE on this type. Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe we want to check if a type is constructible, ... using the C++ standard type traits. Next follow the first questions I have mainly from the reference documentation of expected<T,E>. In general I find most of the operation not specified enough. I would like to have something in line with the standard way of specifying an interface. * it is not clear from the reference documentation if expected<void,E> is valid? |* |is expected<T,E> the sum type of T, E and empty? and exception_ptr? |"outcome<T>| can be empty, or hold an instance of a type |T|, or hold an instance of |error_code_extended|, or hold an instance of |std::exception_ptr|. This saves you having to wrap an error code into an exception pointer instance, thus also avoiding a memory allocation." std::experimental::expected requires that its Error type to be no throw constructible, copyable and movable. What are the exception warranties for |error_code_extended? | What are the exception warranties for |outcome<T>||? | * inplace construction What is the difference between: constexpr expected (value_t _) noexcept(std::is_nothrow_default_constructible< value_type >::value) Implicit constructor of a valued monad (default constructed) and constexpr expected (in_place_t, Args &&... args) noexcept(std::is_nothrow_constructible< value_type, Arg, Args... >::value) when there is no Args. IMO the second subsumes the first and so there is no need fro the first overload and the value_t tag. * default constructor constexpr expected () noexcept(is_nothrow_default_constructible) Default constructor. This doesn't say what the default constructor does. * Shouldn't constexpr expected (in_place_t, std::initializer_list l) noexcept(std::is_nothrow_constructible< value_type, std::initializer_list>::value) Implicit constructor from an initializer list. be constexpr explicit expected(in_place_t, initializer_list il, Args&&... args); * What is void_rebound and where it is defined constexpr expected (const void_rebound &v) noexcept(std::is_nothrow_copy_constructible< error_type >::value) Implicit constructor from an identically configured basic_monad<void> by copy. * construction from error type What is wrong with template <class... Args> constexpr explicit expected(unexpect_t, Args&&...); template <class U, class... Args> constexpr explicit expected(unexpect_t, initializer_list, Args&&...); Why do you prefer an implicit conversion. This deviation must be in the rationale of the differences. constexpr expected (const error_type &v) noexcept(std::is_nothrow_copy_constructible< error_type >::value) Implicit constructor from a error_type by copy. constexpr expected (error_type &&v) noexcept(std::is_nothrow_move_constructible< error_type >::value) * raw types It is not clear what is the difference between xxx and raw_xxx typedef value_storage_type::value_type value_type The type potentially held by the monad. typedef implementation_policy::value_type raw_value_type The raw type potentially held by the monad. typedef value_storage_type::error_type error_type The error code potentially held by the monad. typedef implementation_policy::error_type raw_error_type The raw error code potentially held by the monad. typedef value_storage_type::exception_type exception_type The exception ptr potentially held by the monad. typedef implementation_policy::exception_type raw_exception_type The raw exception ptr potentially held by the monad. * What is the "The exception ptr potentially held by the monad"? * what is the sizeof expected <T,E>? * is basic_monad something proposed or an implementation detail? If the first, this should be renamed, if the second this class should not appear in the documentation and the word monad should be banned. * What is expected<Policy> in template<class Policy , typename = typename std::enable_if<std::is_same<typename implementation_policy::value_type, typename Policy::value_type>::value || std::is_void<typename Policy::value_type>::value || std::is_constructible<typename implementation_policy::value_type, typename Policy::value_type>::value>::type, typename = typename std::enable_if<std::is_same<typename implementation_policy::error_type, typename Policy::error_type>::value || std::is_constructible<typename implementation_policy::error_type, typename Policy::error_type>::value>::type, typename = typename std::enable_if<std::is_same<typename implementation_policy::exception_type, typename Policy::exception_type>::value || std::is_constructible<typename implementation_policy::exception_type, typename Policy::exception_type>::value>::type> constexpr expected (expected< Policy > &&o, explicit_conversion_from_different_policy=explicit_conversion_from_different_policy()) Explicit move constructor from a basic_monad with a differing implementation policy. For this constructor to be available, value_type, error_type and exception_type must be identical or constructible. * move constructor/copy constructor The reference documentation doesn't says what this does. * Missing move/copy assignment * bool conversion should be explicit * is_ready has nothing to be with expected. * Shouldn't value_or return by value? otherwise what would be the difference between get_or and value_or? * emplace. Missing overload template <class U, class... Args> void emplace(initializer_list, Args&&...); * swap: What is the meaning of swapping an expected with an option? swap must follow the standard signature. * Missing preconditions on the observers, which make them wide operations. Saying that they return an address makes them wide operations however accessing to the contents of this address will be undefined behavior. I prefer the standard way, defining a narrow function and stating clearly the pre-conditions. * what error_or <https://ned14.github.io/boost.outcome/structboost_1_1outcome_1_1v1__xxx_1_1…> returns if it contains an exception? * what is the difference between get_error_or and error_or? https://github.com/ned14/boost.outcome/issues/19 * Missing overload for get_unexpected. In addition it doesn't return an unexpected_type. constexpr const E & get_unexpected () const; Best, Vicente

12 63

boost.interprocess atomic uint64?
by dnj0496 24 May '17

24 May '17

Hi, I am looking at interprocess/detail/atomic.hpp file and all atomic operations seem to be dealing with uint32. Does boost interprocess not support uint64 types? Can it work similar to std::atomic<type>? Thanks. Dk. -- View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/boost-interprocess-atomic-uint64-tp46945… Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

2 2

[outcome] expected vs. result
by Andrzej Krzemienski 24 May '17

24 May '17

Niall, I am trying to summarize differences between `expected<T, error_code>` and `result<T>`. So far, I have identified the following: 1. API/ABI stability guarantees. 2. `result` has empty state - `expected` does not. 3. `result` uses error_code_extended for more error details in the ring-buffer. 4. No ordering (operator<) for `result` Is the above list complete? Regards, &rzej;

2 1

issue in using vector in version 1.64
by Rishabh Arora 24 May '17

24 May '17

Hello, I just build the latest version of boost (1.64) I tried running the following code: http://ideone.com/n6FSKr It didn't compile and instead gave the following error: https://usercontent.irccloud-cdn.com/file/Pf0b8F8L/Screenshot%20from%202017… Can someone please help in understanding and rectifying it. Thanks in advance, Best Regards, Rishabh

4 3

Request for endorsements for mp11
by Peter Dimov 24 May '17

24 May '17

Would anyone be so kind as to formally endorse mp11 as a candidate for Boost? As a reminder, mp11 is a simple C++11 metaprogramming library, available at https://github.com/pdimov/mp11/ CSS-less documentation can be viewed at https://rawgit.com/pdimov/mp11/master/doc/html/mp11.html

9 15

std::auto_ptr in public interfaces
by Daniela Engert 23 May '17

23 May '17

Hi everybody, you are probably aware of the fact that the upcoming C++17 standard is going to remove std:auto_ptr (and other deprecated features), and that MSVC 14.0 and 14.1 no longer supply these deprecated, to-be-removed features when compiling in a 'later than C++14' mode (i.e. /std::c++latest or /std:c++17). Today I've learned that latest versions of libc++ also no longer supply std::auto_ptr when compiled in C++17 mode. Some time ago I've talked about an in-house version of Boost which no longer requires these deprecated features and builds and passes tests in C++17 mode. As of yesterday I've completed my pull-requests against all those libraries using any of these features (¹), to deal with this situation where required - except for two libraries: locale and ptr_container. These two remaining libraries use std::auto_ptr in their public interfaces and replacing std::auto_ptr with std::unique_ptr is not as easy as a replacement of std::auto_ptr used in the bowels of a library or in test code. It would impose respective changes to user code as well. In our company we just got rid of all traces of std::auto_ptr and happily keep on using locale and ptr_container just as before. So guys, what's your opinion of how to deal with this situation? Ciao Dani ¹ algorithm, asio, assign, bimap, container, gil, graph, icl, interprocess, intrusive, lockfree, msm, phoenix, polygon, random, range, regex, statechart, test, typeof, wave, xpressive -- PGP/GPG: 2CCB 3ECB 0954 5CD3 B0DB 6AA0 BA03 56A1 2C4638C5

10 19

[msm] [statechart] unmerged PRs
by András Kucsma 23 May '17

23 May '17

Hi Everyone, There are a couple of PRs for msm and statechart by me and others, which didn't get any attention for many months now. Can the maintainers please take a look at them? https://github.com/boostorg/msm/pulls https://github.com/boostorg/statechart/pulls Thank you, Andras

2 2

[review] PolyCollection formal review results: ACCEPTED into Boost
by Ion Gaztañaga 23 May '17

23 May '17

Hi, Thank you for your participation in the PolyCollection review. I'll try to collect all votes and summarize the agreed changes on the library. ----- Votes ----- I count 8 (all positive) reviews and votes from Pete Bartlett Andrzej Krzemienski Hans Dembinski Thorsten Ottosen Vinnie Falco Edward Diener Brook Milligan Steven Watanabe -------- Comments -------- Additionally the following boosters did some positive comments on the library and made some questions Dominique Devienne Adam Wulkiewicz Myself No comment was blocking for the acceptance of the library so Boost.PolyCollection is accepted into Boost, congratulations to Joaquín! I recommend committing the library to the boostorg repo as soon as possible in order to start regressions and try to include the new library in Boost 1.65. Many of the proposed changes are one-liners in the documentation and code and hopefully will be ready for Boost 1.65. Deeper changes can wait until Boost 1.66. --------------------------------------- Summary of agreed comments and changes: --------------------------------------- ------------------ Dominique Devienne (positive comment) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234672.php ------------------ "I suspect the new poly_collection could be used for more efficient parallel (and/or concurrent) processing of elements, and would be interested in examples and even a ::parallel_for_each() algorithm that leverages the collection's internal storage" Joaquín will try to play with this idea to see how it fares performancewise. ------------------ Pete Bartlett (positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234669.php ------------------ "It may be worth remarking in the docs what facilities are used for the type registries that are presumably behind the scenes. From the reference section I think RTTI is required. Is this a hard limit or could Boost.TypeIndex be used?" Additional comment from the review manager: Consider making RTTI customizable. Boost.TypeInfo should be easily usable. In any case document the use of RTTI in the documentation. Joaquín will consider the customizable RTTI, will document that RTTI is required by the library. ------------------ Andrzej Krzemienski (positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234716.php ------------------ [1] "Based on my experience OO-inheritance solutions are faster that using `variant`. As you say below, I was suggesting the alternative design: `variant_collection`." Joaquín: "Some have asked for a variant_collection to be part of Boost.PolyCollection roadmap." [2] "I am not comfortable with per-segment functions having the same name as container-wide functions" Joaquín: "On the contrary, I like name overloading better, because it looks terser yet sufficiently expressive" [3] "I observed that the following small program crashes (assertion fails). According to the documentation this should throw an exception upon insertion rather than firing assertions" Joaquín: I think the assertion will be removed. [4] Commenting c.insert(x) / c.insert(it,x) reference: "And maybe it is just me, but I cannot make the sense of it" Joaquín: There is a typo that will be fixed. Will reword the reference sections into a more digestible form. ------------------ Ion Gaztañaga (positive comment) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234729.php https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234745.php ------------------ [1] Model-based polymorphism: "Wouldn't be a good idea to make this model-based polymorphism (or a refined one) public? Maybe the current model needs more work to support additional polymorphism models." Joaquín: I'd be really conservative here and withhold such a big move until real use cases are found. The problem is once this is made public the design of the lib becomes effectively frozen. Will study it for the future if there's demand. [2] Optimize memory-indirection caused by unique_ptr: "segment_type could directly hold the class derived from segment_backend as packed_segment/split_segment will need the same size and alignment requirements regardless of the ConcreteType they hold (as long as they use std::vector). This could improve insertion times and other operations. This optimization could also make easier to fix the following section (allocator propagation)." Joaquín: In principle if the optimization is reasonably implemented t'd be welcome. [3] Allocator propagation: The library does not correctly propagate the allocator to support the scoped allocator model. Joaquín will fix this. [4] In many operations the dynamic type of the object to be inserted or manipulated can be known at compile, so the internal virtual call overhead can be optimized. Specially in "insert" and "emplace", but many other operations that work with a single segment can be optimized as well. Joaquín will review operations and will try to "staticfy" as much as possible. [5] Documentation should reflect some operations, like size<T>(), empty<T>() and others are not constant-time cheap operations. Thorsten suggested: The documentation should defin k = # of segments in container and add in those operations "Complexity: linear in k" as the explanation. Joaquín will document it. --------------- Adam Wulkiewicz (comment, but positive) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234662.php --------------- [1] Polycollection doesn't meet the requirements of C++ container as defined in the standard, specially section (23.2.1.3). Joaquín: The part about 23.2.1.3 is not listed among the differences, will include it. --------------- Hans Dembinski (positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234694.php --------------- [1] "boost::function_collection was not so clear to me. It is nice to keep the narrative of game development going, but like someone said before, I think it would help to give a simpler example" Joaquín will improve the explanation [2] "I felt that the benefit of using boost::function_collection was not so clearly presented as for boost::base_collection. The function pointers are all the same size, so how exactly does the optimisation enter" Joaquín will improve the explanation. [3] "I tried to compile the tests on a Mac with Apple-clang 8.0.0. It worked after I manually specified "cxxflags=-std=c++11" Note from the review manager: No fix was discovered, I suggest working on this as many Apple users will have this problem. --------------- Thorsten Ottosen (positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234697.php --------------- [1] "OO programming and copyability of classes is not something that everybody is going to like. (...) Would it be possible for the library to pick up a private or protected copy-constructor when needed, possible via a friend declaration? (...) being able to have your hierarchy non-copyable while allowing copyability within the container is important IMO." Moveability is already required to store classes in the segment. Joaquín will study the possibility of using a copying traits class to let users customize this point. [2] "I miss range versions of the various iteration patterns so I can use them directly with a range-based for. E.g. instead of" Joaquín will implement it. [3] "Inside the segments you store std::vector. I could easily imagine the need to store something else, (...) Therefore I would love to have a second defaulted argument set to std::vector" Element contiguity is a key property and this customization requires a lot of work. Deferred for the future if there is demand for it. [4] "Implementation of equality: do we need to be set like semantics (two-pass)? Why don't you just delegate to the segments after checking the size?" Joaquín proposed a new slightly better implementation. [5] "tutorial: consider using override where appropriate" Joaquín will review code to use it. [6] "why ==,!= but not <,>,>=, <=" Joaquín followed the interface of std::unordered_set, [Review manager's comment: Consider explaining this in the documentation] [7] "Clarify that boost::poly_collection::for_each <warrior,juggernaut,goblin,std::string,window>( //restituted types c.begin(),c.end(),[&](const auto& x) loops over all elements or only the specific" Joaquín will clarify it. [8] "It could be good to have a performance test of erase in the middle/front." Joaquín will test it. [9] "using the identifier "concept" may require change in the near future?"s Joaquín will change it. [10] "I wouldn't mind seeing separate graphs for 0-300 elements." Joaquín will add it. [11] 2clarify test are without use of reserve" Joaquín will clarify it. [12] The test are testing best possible scenario; a more realistic test would be to copy pointers to an std::vector<base*>, shuffle it and run update on that. Joaquín will consider this, maybe additionally for 1-1000 elements. --------------- Vinnie Falco (Positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234704.php --------------- [1] "Iterators returned by begin<T>() produce a long, ugly compile error when compared against iterators returned by begin() or end()." Joaquín will study the issue. He's not sure if this can be improved. --------------- Edward Diener (positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234762.php --------------- [1] "It is also hard to understand what the advantage of a poly collection of these objects entail over a more normal C++ collection ( vector, array etc. ) of std::function<Signature> objects, since the latter object type already represents a generalized callable construct in C++." Joaquín will think about how to make the intro part more accessible. [2] "I have mentioned previously that I think the documentation should be more specific about the types being used for the boost::function_collection" Joaquín will take these points, and try to improve docs so as to make these aspects clearer. --------------- Brook Milligan (positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234872.php --------------- [1] "The only problem was that the following test cases needed -std=c++14 (rather than c++11) because std::make_unique is not defined for c++11 on that compiler: algorithms, basic_function, and segmented_structure. Perhaps a mention of the need for c++14 in some examples?" Joaquín will fix in the corresponding Jamfile.v2 and will mention it in the examples. --------------- Steven Watanabe (positive review) https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2017/05/234877.php --------------- [1] Several documentation fixes Joaquín will apply recommended fixes [2] Change type_erasure::is_subconcept<type_erasure::assignable<>,Concept2>::value as Boost.TypeErasure was recently extended to support move assignment. [3] Fix "type_erasure::is_subconcept<type_erasure::typeid_<>,Concept>::value " with "typeid_<remove_cv_t<remove_reference_t<T>>> " [4] Fix "static void* subaddress(T& x){return boost::addressof(x);}" as it does not support multiple inheritance [5] Fix "return r(std::forward<Args>(args)...);" that does not correctly handle "void" return types. Joaquín will fix all of them [6] "make_index_sequence<N>" can be implemented more efficiently: Joaquín will find a better implementation. Review manager's comment: see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17424477/implementation-c14-make-intege… [7] poly_collection is defined in namespace detail, internal functions can be found by ADL Joaquín will try to limit what ADL can find.

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[config] Need help with clang config
by John Maddock 22 May '17

22 May '17

I've just added travis support to Boost.Config, the problem is that there are a large number of clang failures that I simply don't know how to fix, see: https://travis-ci.org/boostorg/config The errors occur because clang chokes on libstdc++ code, so while <regex> exists (for example), clang won't parse it. Any ideas anyone? Thanks in advance, John. --- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com

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