November 2018 - Boost - lists.preview.boost.org

[asio][coroutine] forbid_suspend blocks
by Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira 07 Aug '19

07 Aug '19

I've implemented a dumb linter using Python + clang API that allows you to mark certain blocks as “atomic in respect to coroutines” using C++11 attributes. Usage example follows: void f() { int yield; g(yield); [[bt::forbid_suspend]] { // Comment this call to make linter accept the code g(yield); t(); } } You can change bt::forbid_suspend to another identifier by tuning settings on the beginning of the script. The prefix forbid was inspired by Rust's linters[1] as you cannot disallow the linter from inside the forbid_suspend block. Some limitations follow: - A suspend point is identified by looking references to any id equals to yield in the last argument passed to function calls. It means that yield[ignored_ec] and alike will be correctly identified, but it needs to be named yield and it needs to be the last argument to the function call. - I haven't found a way to extract attributes related to COMPOUND_STMT nodes with clang API, so I manually look for token gaps and do a simple regex. It means you cannot use macros to [[bt::forbid_suspend]] as the macro won't be expanded. - You better call the script with '-x c++' and also ' -I/usr/lib/clang/5.0.1/include'. Like I've said in the beginning of the email, it's a *dumb* linter, which means it doesn't try to handle all cases. Therefore, I don't hope to do many changes to it or maintain it to work against newer releases of clang and I'm only uploading it to gist (not fullblow Github): < https://gist.github.com/vinipsmaker2/d930fbe5b7597432b021effe618da171>. It should also be easy to hack as it is very small. I'm releasing the linter under public domain. Enjoy. I have been using fibers in a daily basis on the last months of my job to solve networking problems on a gateway project. Some of the technologies I use are: - Boost.Asio and its spawn function. - A few custom synchronization primitives for the fibers (e.g. mutex, semaphore). - Eventually I'll have to write a custom spawn function that returns a joinable handle so I can kill the usage of a fiber::barrier in a few places. I've been using the linter for about a week already and looks fine. My use case are: - To prevent iterator invalidation in regions accessing shared variables. - To guarantee events order in algorithms that handle races (cannot yield while task YYY hasn't finished). The project I use it in is not an open source project, so I cannot talk much more about it. Also, I don't claim my solution is original. I wouldn't be surprised if the very same solution exists in the wild (please let me know if you know of a similar approach). This is not a new problem. It is know for some time. For instance, in P0171, Gor Nishanov noted this same problem: “In coroutines the suspend point is clearly marked with await, which tells the reader that something unusual happens in this function and allows the reader, for example, to confirm whether the lifetimes of the objects of interest align with the lifetime of the coroutine or not, whether some locks need to be acquired to protect some concurrently accessed data, and whether some locks need to be released before the execution reaches the suspend point.” — <http://open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2015/p0171r0.html>, 2015 However, the solution he presented was to manually examine whole blocks of code without help from the compiler. I argue that the solution he presented is as error-prone as manually looking for exit paths that don't free acquired resources in languages lacking RAII. And I've been spoiled too much by RAII. Furthermore, I take this comment of his with highly suspicious look: “Since we are on the subject of maintenance nightmares, we would like to offer a conjecture that the absence of the await in P0114 is a likely source of many maintenance nightmares. Without a syntactic marker to signal to the person reading the code that something funny is going on, it is impossible to tell whether the following code is correct or not” — http://open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2015/p0171r0.html If I had to give a vote to the proposal he was defending or Chris' proposal, I'd probably have chosen Chris'. [1] https://doc.rust-lang.org/reference/attributes.html# lint-check-attributes -- Vinícius dos Santos Oliveira https://vinipsmaker.github.io/

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Non-ASCII Path Names in Repo
by Tom Kent 25 May '19

25 May '19

In the last few days we've had a non-ASCII path name added to the repo: tools/boostdep/test/utf8-test-ßµ™∃ Which came with commit 8893d1c57951a [1] I noticed this because a python 2 script (calling shutil.copytree) I had running on windows that copied the repo around started to fail. I've long needed to update that script to python 3, and am working on this. However, I wanted to point this out to the list so we could discuss if there are any other ramifications of having a non-ascii path. I vaguely remember some discussion about something like this in the past, but couldn't find it via search. If this is already a settled topic, that's great. Tom [1] https://github.com/boostorg/boostdep/commit/8893d1c57951a4a83705ed203005576…

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Re: [boost] [ Interest? ] [ out_ptr ] Tiny C++ Abstraction for C-Style Output Pointers
by Bjorn Reese 12 May '19

12 May '19

On 06/28/18 21:03, ThePhD via Boost wrote: > out_ptr is a small abstraction for making types such as > std::unique_ptr, std::shared_ptr, boost::shared_ptr, and the upcoming > std::retain_ptr > <http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2016/p0468r0.html> work > work C-Style output functions as a parameter, addressing the need of > wanting to be able to do "my_c_api_init( foo, bar, &my_smart_ptr );". It's Does out_ptr have other use-cases than C interoperability?

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[thread] compiler error gcc 7.3 on cygwin
by James E. King III 06 May '19

06 May '19

Getting an internal compiler error with gcc 7.3 but only on cygwin 64-bit. Jim@pulsar /cygdrive/c/boost/libs/thread $ ../../b2 --abbreviate-paths toolset=gcc cxxstd=11 define=_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200112L define=__USE_ISOC99 threadapi=pthread address-model=64 variant=release -q ... gcc.compile.c++ ../../bin.v2/libs/thread/test/test_10963_c.test/gcc-7.3.0/rls/cxstd-11-iso/thrd-mlt/vsblt-hdn/test_10963_c.o In file included from ../../boost/thread/detail/invoker.hpp:30:0, from ../../boost/thread/future.hpp:31, from ../../libs/thread/test/test_10963.cpp:13: ../../boost/thread/detail/invoke.hpp: In function ‘decltype (*(forward<A0>)(boost::detail::invoke::a0).*boost::detail::invoke::f) boost::detail::invoke(Fp&&, A0&&) [with Fp = void (boost::executors::basic_thread_pool::*)(); A0 = boost::executors::basic_thread_pool*]’: ../../boost/thread/detail/invoke.hpp:102:43: internal compiler error: in gimplify_expr, at gimplify.c:12006 return (*boost::forward<A0>(a0)).*f; ^ Please submit a full bug report, with preprocessed source if appropriate. See <https://gcc.gnu.org/bugs/> for instructions. "g++" -std=c++11 -fvisibility-inlines-hidden -m64 -mthreads -O3 -finline-functions -Wno-inline -Wall -pedantic -fvisibility=hidden -Wextra -Wno-long-long -Wno-unused-parameter -Wunused-function -pedantic -DBOOST_ALL_NO_LIB=1 -DBOOST_THREAD_THROW_IF_PRECONDITION_NOT_SATISFIED -DNDEBUG -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200112L -D__USE_ISOC99 -I"../.." -c -o "../../bin.v2/libs/thread/test/test_10963_c.test/gcc-7.3.0/rls/cxstd-11-iso/thrd-mlt/vsblt-hdn/test_10963_c.o" "../../libs/thread/test/test_10963.cpp" ...failed gcc.compile.c++ ../../bin.v2/libs/thread/test/test_10963_c.test/gcc-7.3.0/rls/cxstd-11-iso/thrd-mlt/vsblt-hdn/test_10963_c.o... If I change the C++ language level to 03 the problem goes away. I also cannot reproduce it on linux with the same version of compiler (but it probably isn't the exact same compiler code). Should I go ahead and file that gcc bug? - Jim

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[test] unit test command-line handling
by Stefan Seefeld 22 Mar '19

22 Mar '19

Hello, this is a question concerning the Boost.Test framework. I'd like to pass command-line arguments to my tests, and I'm unsure of how to proceed. I have found https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/libs/test/doc/html/boost_test/adv_sce…, which shows how to access the command-line programmatically, but that's declared obsolete, and it's also lacking some important info, such as how I should handle the argv vector. Are there any examples that demonstrate this use case ? Specifically: * What (non-deprecated) API can I use to access command-line arguments during test initialization ? * How does my own handling of command-line arguments interact with Boost.Test's own command-line argument handling ? Thanks, Stefan -- ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...

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[Website] Revised $Date$
by Olaf van der Spek 11 Dec '18

11 Dec '18

Hi, I don't think this is what it's supposed to be. > Revised $Date$ https://www.boost.org/development/index.html -- Olaf

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Reminder: 1.69 closes for major changes Wednesday
by Marshall Clow 10 Dec '18

10 Dec '18

Upcoming dates: * 31-Oct: Boost 1.69.0 closed for major code changes * 7-Nov: Boost 1.69.0 closed for beta * 14-Nov: Boost 1.69.0 beta 1 * 5-Dec: Boost 1.69.0 closed for release * 12-Dec: Boost 1.69.0 release -- The Boost Release Team

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[histogram] should some_axis::size() return unsigned or int?
by Hans Dembinski 04 Dec '18

04 Dec '18

Dear community (especially the reviewers of boost.histogram), I am still working on finishing the library based on the excellent reviews I got in September. I cannot make up my mind about a specific detail of the library interface and would like to ask for your input. Every axis type is required to have a size() method, which returns the number of bins along that axis (without counting extra bins for under- and overflow). Should this method return `unsigned` or `int`? = The case for `unsigned` = The size of an axis is non-negative, so the return type should reflect this. All the STL containers return their size as an unsigned integer. Naturally, boost.histogram should be as consistent as possible with the STL, so you don't have think about exceptions from the general rule. Whether `size()` returns a signed or unsigned type matters even in times of `auto`, since compilers like to warn about comparisons between signed and unsigned integers. These warnings and the STL have slowly thought people to write indexed loops with unsigned integers, like so: ``` auto h = make_histogram(…); // 1D histogram for (unsigned i = 0; i < axis.size(); ++i) { auto x = h[i]; // do something with bin } ``` We don't want to break this painfully learned habit by letting `size()` return a signed integer, because it would generate a warning in this naive loop. = The case for `int` = The type of the bin index returned by an axis is `int`, because it can be negative. An axis is required to return -1 when the axis represents an ordered range and the value fall below the low edge of the first bin. So the index must be signed. The size of an axis is highest index + 1. It would be natural to use the same type for `size()` and for the returned index. Internally in the library, there are many less-than comparisons between the index and the size of the axis. If the type of the latter is unsigned, the size must be cast to `int` in all these comparisons to avoid compiler warnings, which is adding code clutter in the implementation. The library provides a range adaptor, called `indexed`, which allows one to iterate over the bins of a histogram with a special proxy, that can return the current bin index and the accumulated value for that bin. The following naive code to ignore under/overflow bins while iterating will generate a warning when `size()` returns `unsigned` ``` auto h = make_histogram(…); // 1D histogram // iterate over indexed bin range, ignore indices < 0 and indices > size (= underflow/overflow bins) for (auto x : indexed(h)) { if (x[0] < 0 || x[0] >= h.axis().size()) // without warning only when x[0] and h.axis().size() both return `int` continue; // do something with bin } ``` People are supposed to use the indexed range to iterate over the bins and not a combination of simple loops like in the first listing, because it scales nicely to multi-dimensional histograms. In multiple dimensions, it is also potentially more efficient. The `indexed` range adaptor automatically moves sequentially in memory, which this is not guaranteed if the index is created by looping manually over several indices, like so ``` for (unsigned i = 0; i < h.axis(0).size(); ++i) for (unsigned j = 0; j < h.axis(1).size(); ++j) { auto x = h.at(i, j); // this may jump around in memory, causing cache misses } ``` How the linear index is generated from the multi-dimensional index is an implementation detail (although the implementation should probably anticipate these naive loops…) So, if `indexed` is anyway the default recommended way of iterating over a histogram, then size() should return `int` to be compatible with the index type, which is also `int`, because it makes naive code work better. Sorry for the long email, I would really appreciate your input. Best regards, Hans

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Re: [boost] [histogram] should some_axis::size() return unsigned or int?
by Hans Dembinski 01 Dec '18

01 Dec '18

Dear Jim, > On 29. Nov 2018, at 13:31, Jim Pivarski <jpivarski(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > It seems to me that if other C++ containers use unsigned integers for size(), you should too, for minimal surprise. The issue you raise about the "which bin?" function returning -1 would be solved in a very-strongly typed language like Haskell as an optional<int>. I know that C++ has optional types now, but I don't know how widely they're used or if there's a significant performance penalty. If this wouldn't look too weird in a C++ program and wouldn't slow it down (or needlessly complicate the code), an optional type would describe your intent more fully than -1. there is boost::optional, which has the semantics of a pointer and can be used to represent a type that stores a value or not. ``` boost::optional o = some_fickle_function(); if (o) { // optional has a value? auto value = *o; // "dereference" to get the value } else { // handle case where value is missing } ``` This is not a good match here, because -1 here does not have the meaning of "value is missing", but it really is the logical index for the virtual bin that spans from -infinity to the lower edge of the first bin in the axis. Value arrow: -inf ——————— | ——————— | —————— | —————— |—————————> +inf bin -1 bin 0 bin 1 bin 2 bin 3 I think representing the underflow bin with -1 and the overflow bin with the value returned by size() is very intuitive and elegant. Best regards, Hans

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C++ project suggestion for Google summer of code (summer, 2019 )
by Ahmed Hussein 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

Dear boost , My name is Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed. I ‘m an Egyptian second year electrical engineering student (this is my third year but in Egypt we count 0,1,2,3,4). This my first time ever getting involved in open source. Nevertheless, I am eager to contribute to the vast open source community . I would love to create a C++ library under your supervision and guiding in the next Google summer of code (summer,2019). The attached document is an overview of the library, it is not a proposal with a time line but it answers questions regarding: How is this library going to benefit the open source community? What facilities will be provided by that library? What kind of libraries can be built by fellow programmers using this library? How can this library be extended in the future, whether by me or others? Thank you for your time . Sincerely Advanced mathematics for engineering applications <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hxKHm0vv5nvia-d_OcGd3SG07gCf2ZtMQvDn_LF…>

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