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

CMake Announcement from Boost Steering Committee
by Jon Kalb 13 Aug '24

13 Aug '24

The libraries produced by the Boost community have had a greater impact on the way that the C++ community writes code than any other library implementation. The focus of the Boost community will always be on the libraries, but it is undeniable that we are dependent on and often limited by the infrastructure of our trade. Years ago, the move to Git was contentious; yet, it was required to improve development. In a similar vein our build system has become an impediment for many developers and users, existing and prospective. Therefore, we, the Steering Committee, announce to the Boost community our desire and intent to move Boost’s build system to CMake for users and developers alike. We are soliciting comments and proposals from the community to guide the process and the goals. Our desire is that the community can come to consensus by the end of the calendar year with a vision of supporting users and developers. We understand that the actual process of achieving the end goal will be long, time consuming, and not without its share of conflict. We also recognize that the Boost community is comprised of bright and passionate individuals that are eager to get involved and help get work done. The members of the Steering Committee have been encouraged by the discussions and activity surrounding CMake on the mailing lists over the years and know that many people have voiced visions. We hope that each of you rejoins the discussion to support this initiative and contributes to the common goal of improving Boost’s integration into the broader C++ ecosystem. For the Boost Steering Committee, Jon Kalb, Chair jonkalb(a)boost.org

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[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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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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clang-win, again
by Peter Dimov 31 Oct '18

31 Oct '18

Has anyone succeeded in getting clang-cl.exe working under b2? I've installed llvm-6.0.1, added it to PATH, put using clang-win : : : <compatibility>vc14 ; in my user-config, and what I get is: C:\boost-git\develop\libs\smart_ptr\test>b2 toolset=clang-win sp_interlocked_test warning: mismatched versions of Boost.Build engine and core warning: Boost.Build engine (b2) is 2015.07.00 warning: Boost.Build core (at C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src) is 2018.02-git C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/tools\msvc.jam:1087: in set-setup-command *** argument error * rule virtual-target.from-file ( file : file-loc : project ) * called with: ( : /C:/boost-git/develop/libs/smart_ptr/test : object(project-t arget)@129 ) * missing argument file C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\virtual-target.jam:970:see definition of rule 'virtual-target.from-file' being called C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/tools\msvc.jam:652: in clang-win.compile.c+ + C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/kernel\modules.jam:107: in modules.call-in C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/util\indirect.jam:105: in indirect.call C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\virtual-target.jam:902: in execute C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\virtual-target.jam:821: in class@acti on.actualize C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\virtual-target.jam:332: in actualize- action C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\virtual-target.jam:518: in actualize- no-scanner C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\virtual-target.jam:142: in class@virt ual-target.actualize C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\configure.jam:258: in try-find-build C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\configure.jam:396: in find-builds-raw C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\configure.jam:455: in configure.find- builds C:/boost-git/develop\boostcpp.jam:734: in boostcpp.deduce-address-model C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/kernel\modules.jam:107: in modules.call-in C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/util\indirect.jam:105: in indirect.call C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\property.jam:144: in property.evaluat e-conditionals-in-context C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\targets.jam:1087: in evaluate-require ments C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\targets.jam:1121: in common-propertie s2 C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\targets.jam:1017: in targets.common-p roperties C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\targets.jam:1313: in class@basic-targ et.generate C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\targets.jam:812: in generate-really C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src/build\targets.jam:784: in class@main-target .generate C:/boost-git/develop/tools/build/src\build-system.jam:797: in load C:\boost-git\develop\tools\build\src/kernel\modules.jam:295: in import C:\boost-git\develop\tools\build\src/kernel/bootstrap.jam:139: in boost-build C:\boost-git\develop\boost-build.jam:17: in module scope

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[RFC] unique_val (handles, IDs, descriptors...)
by Miguel Ojeda 15 Oct '18

15 Oct '18

Hi all, While working on a medium-sized project, I had to wrap quite some handles, IDs, descriptors, etc. into RAII classes. Somehow, writing those and making them movable seemed more verbose than needed. I searched in the STL and Boost for something already implemented, but nothing seemed to come up. I decided to write my own prototype to see whether I was missing something important; but actually using it in my project felt quite natural and simple. At this point, I asked for a second opinion from a well-known expert (thanks Scott!) and he agreed that it seemed like a reasonable idea but, of course, he would also be surprised if others haven't come up with something similar. So I polished it up a bit and uploaded it to: https://github.com/ojeda/unique_val Below you have the introduction inlined [1]. If you have the time, please take a look (specially to the Rationale) and let me know your comments. The code itself is very short and straightforward. If you already have this class/template in Boost somewhere that I missed, please let me know! Otherwise, if you think this could be interesting to put into Boost in some existing library (not sure which) or as a new tiny library, I would be glad to make the effort to expand it, clean it up, etc. Thank you! Miguel [1] """ A single-header header-only library for representing unique values (handles, IDs, descriptors...) that default to a value on move for C++11, C++14 and C++17. It simplifies writing resource-owning classes (RAII) with move semantics support for resources with handles, IDs or descriptors that are supposed to be used as unique values, not as unique pointers. For instance, it can be used with non-pointer handlers (like the `int` file/socket descriptors in POSIX) and with opaque pointer handlers (like the `HWND` handles in the Win32 API). As such, it can be used as an alternative to `std::unique_ptr` with or without custom deleter, specially for resources that use a non-pointer type or resources that are not simply heap-allocated. It does not have any overhead compared to using the original type. It supports booleans, integers, pointers and enumerations. The default value can be different than the default-constructed value (i.e. different than 0, nullptr, etc.). """

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Tools to manage multiple repositories effectively?
by James E. King III 09 Oct '18

09 Oct '18

Hello, I am looking for tools that would allow me to create a portal and/or monitor the following properties of boost repositories. I am in the CMT and at least one fix that was in develop never made it into master for the 1.68.0 release, so I want to be able to see, at a glance, information about the boost repositories I care about in one place. There are about 20 repositories I regularly participate in now so a portal to show what I need to worry about would be useful. 1. How far behind is master (with respect to develop)? This would help identify which repositories are behind develop. Useful for ensuring things get into a release. 2. How many open pull requests? 3. How many new pull requests (within the last week)? 4. How many updated pull requests (within the last week)? 5. How many open issues? 6. How many new issues (within the last week)? 7. How many updated issues (within the last week)? "week" could be configured, perhaps month, or "since I last visited". Anybody know of any good tools or perhaps an existing site that can do this for a multi-repository solution? Thanks, Jim

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[all] Request for out of the box visibility support
by Antony Polukhin 09 Sep '18

09 Sep '18

I'd like to draw attention to a problem with Boost binaries for Linux. There's an awesome -fvisibility=hidden flag for Linux compilers that improves load times, performance, size of binaries and reduces the chance of symbol collisions. More info at https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Visibility . Unfortunately, most of the Boost libraries do not set it by default: - atomic - chrono - container - context - contract - coroutine - date_time - exception - fiber - filesystem - graph - graph_parallel - iostreams - locale - mpi - program_options - python - random - regex - signals - system - test - thread - timer - type_erasure - wave Moreover minority of the above libraries just do not work with the flag. Users just can not run ./b2 cxxflags="-fvisibility=hidden" because there's a chance that some library could stop linking. Actually things are even more ugly. Linux distributions usually do not tune the build flags for each package so at least Debian based distributions build Boost with default flags. Users get suboptimal builds. If you're a maintainer of one of the above libraries *please do* the following steps: * Make sure that all the public symbols are accordingly marked with appropriate BOOST_SYMBOL_* macro. Instruction is available here: https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/libs/config/doc/html/boost_config/boo… * Turn on the visibility=hidden by default: * by adding <target-os>linux:<cxxflags>"-fvisibility=hidden" to the Jamfile if you do not care much for antique compilers (Example https://github.com/boostorg/stacktrace/blob/819f2b1c861dec7530372a990ecabab… ) * by using a more advanced technique for detecting the flag availability (For example see https://github.com/boostorg/math/blob/develop/build/Jamfile.v2#L20 or https://github.com/boostorg/log/blob/develop/build/Jamfile.v2#L24 ) P.S.: I would appreciate any comments or updates on the feature request. P.P.S.: Log, Math, Serialization (and Stacktrace) libraries already use that flag by default. Many thanks! -- Best regards, Antony Polukhin

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[range] #11202: boost.sort header conflicts with boost.range header
by Steven Ross 07 Sep '18

07 Sep '18

https://svn.boost.org/trac10/ticket/11202 has been sitting for years. The "using range::sort" causing the namespace pollution needs to be deleted, and then everything depending on that inside boost needs to be fixed. This will break people dependent on the namespace pollution, but that's the only way to clean it up. Is anyone willing to take on this cleanup? Is there a good way to identify cross-library dependency breakages in situations like this so they can be fixed?

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Trac
by Robert Ramey 07 Sep '18

07 Sep '18

Could we agree to stop using the Trac system? The github issues/pr system is much more functional. I propose we close the trac system to new issues - be of course leave it available for reference. Robert Ramey

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Guidelines on copyright notice maintenance
by Mateusz Loskot 06 Sep '18

06 Sep '18

Hi, The license guidelines [1] include instructions on "How should Boost programmers apply the license to source and header files?" Unless I've missed it, there seem to be lack of guidelines about how to maintain (existing) copyright notices. I don't aim to resurrect the old lengthy thread from Sept 2015 on validity of copyright notices. In that thread, however, some guidelines or conventions were expressed: [2] "because copyright is only claimed for changes meeting a certain threshold of originality" [3] "It's up to those people to add a line if they so decide. Copyright only covers expressions of creativity." Those suggests, there seem to be common understanding on if/how/when it is recommended or even necessary to update copyright notice in a source file of a Boost library. Wouldn't it be helpful to captured those as guidelines in the BSL FAQ. Would there be someone knowledgeable about it and willing to make the update or at least explain it here? (I will make it into HTML and PR to boostorg/website) I understand David and Beman, primary authors of the page [1], may no longer be available. [1] https://www.boost.org/users/license.html [2] https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2015/09/225565.php [3] https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2015/09/225570.php Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net

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[ublas] Supporting DNNs with Tensors/Multidimensional Arrays
by Cem Bassoy 06 Sep '18

06 Sep '18

Gsoc <https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/4507228564881408/> 2018 just ended one week ago and we had many successefully completed student projects <https://github.com/BoostGSoC18>. I was responsible for adding tensor support to Boost.uBLAS for primarily supporting multilinear algebra operations in the field of numerics. The wiki description along with the implementation can be found here <https://github.com/BoostGSoC18/tensor>. Similar to Boost.multi_array <https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/libs/multi_array/doc/index.html> the runtime-reshapable tensor data structure is parametrized in terms of number of dimensions (rank/order), dimension extents, data type, layout (first- and last-order) and storage type. The first two are runtime-variable. I am also about to add subtensor (view/handle of a tensor) along with multidimensional iterators for convenient algorithm implementation. It is yet not as flexible as GSL's multi_span <https://github.com/Microsoft/GSL/blob/master/include/gsl/multi_span>: does not yet support static rank and dimensions. However, basic generic tensor operations (contraction/transposition/reshaping/...), including a nice syntax for Einstein's summation convention with placeholders, using C++17 features are provided. The operations are evaluated using expression templates (not smart yet). Similar to the tensor <https://eigen.tuxfamily.org/dox/unsupported/group__CXX11__Tensor__Module.ht…> framework of Eigen, that is used by tensor flow <https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow>, the tensor data structure in Boost.uBlas could be taken for implementing deep neural networks or higher-order statistics I think. I am not sure if the C++ community would appreciate if Boost has some form of basic operations for building *deep neural networks* (DNNs). I would like to ask 1. if it make sense for boost to support basic operations for DNNs? 2. what are the obligatory, necessary basic operations for creating DNN building blocks? 3. if there are any additional data structure parameters that needs to be added for (efficiently) supporting DNNs? Best, Cem

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No Viable function warning
by randydom 03 Sep '18

03 Sep '18

Hello i've the bellow function : __declspec(dllexport) int TrySendData(_isocket * isocket,char * ibuff,int ilen) { boost::system::error_code ignored_error; boost::asio::write(isocket->socket(), boost::asio::buffer(ibuff,ilen), boost::asio::transfer_all(), ignored_error); if(ignored_error) return 0; return 1; } I get a *No Viable function* warning , can someone tells me why or helps me in fixing this warning . Thank you . -- Sent from: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Boost-Dev-f2600599.html

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Original STL Library Documentation has been recovered and is now safe forever.
by Robert Ramey 02 Sep '18

02 Sep '18

The Standard Template Library is the foundation of modern C++. The creation and publication of this code and its documentation set a new standard for the formal specification of what a computer program should do, how it should be designed and how it should be formally documented. These pages were maintained first by Silicon Graphics and then later by Hewett-Packard. In January of 2018 these pages were removed by H-P. This is a historic blunder. I have recovered the original STL Library Document and hosted them here: http://www.rrsd.com/software_development/stl/index.htm Robert Ramey

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[integer] CMT assume responsibility for Boost.Integer?
by James E. King III 01 Sep '18

01 Sep '18

The maintainer of Boost.Integer has no commits since 2008, and I was unable to get a hold of him by email (waited 10 days for a reply). I suggest we transfer responsibility of this repository to the CMT. - Jim

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Gsoc 2019
by Shubham Verma 01 Sep '18

01 Sep '18

Hey I'm new, but I'd like to contribute to your organisation, can someone please guide me along?

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Let's stop distributing binaries
by Robert Ramey 31 Aug '18

31 Aug '18

The fact is that users of boost use compilers with differing levels of C++ standard conformance. This creates a number of problems including (but probably not limited to) a) Using libraries built with different levels of C++ conformance may create ABI issues. b) it creates a discussion about "dropping C++03 support". Actually it creates a discussion about that the above actually means. c) It's motivated a suggestion that all libraries move to header only. This is not great idea - but I won't address that here. I believe all these issues - and more - would disappear if we just stopped distributing binaries. Each user would be building his own boost version with (presumably) the same compiler. Since C++03 compatible libraries are C++?? compatible, each library author can maintain the level of backward compatibility that he wishes. But if we're not going to distribute binaries, then users might as well just clone the latest "certified - good - tagged" version in the master branch from the github repo. That is, let's just stop or truncate the whole release circus. Replace with an occasional "certification/versioning procedure" which would make available a "squashed" master suitable for efficient cloning. This would make everyone's life easier. Robert Ramey

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A possible date for dropping c++03 support
by Mike Dev 31 Aug '18

31 Aug '18

Sorry for all the bad line-breaks in my previous message. I don't have access to a properly configured email client right now. This should be easier to read: ====== Original Message ============== Please, let's not derail the discussion just after some consensus has emerged and just before it actually produces actionable items. Let's not make the better the enemy of the good here. I made the suggestion to commonly drop c++03 support in the hope that it would actually lead to some code simplifications and reduced coupling between the boost libraries - even if only in their implementation (if someone wanted to do a real c++14 reboot of their library, no one is/was stopping them anyway). >From the survey, I'd say interest in actually applying c++11 features in libraries that a currently supporting 03 is already relatively low, but big enough that I believe this will actually lead to some changes other than just changing the default test settings. That is with a standard almost universally supported by compilers in use today. Even though the move from 11 to 14 is much less dramatic, c++14 support is less wide spread and outside of the big three, there are many compilers where even the most recent version doesn't support c++14, so I just don't see people that are currently maintaining c++03 support in their libraries suddenly starting to use c++14. All this doesn't preclude a discussion about if and when to move to c++14 or a general policy about LTS versions and the like, but please keep it separate unless you are really, really confident it will lead to something actionable earlier than what is currently proposed. I have lots of Ideas, how boost could be reformed and/or modernized but in the end it comes down to convince the individual library maintainers to actually do something. I think the current proposal will at least spark some action. Let the announcement to move to cmake be a warning sign about realistic expectations about the evolution of boost. Maybe I'm aiming too low, but again, if you want more, please open a separate thread and most likely, whatever you come up with there will not be mutually exclusive with what is proposed here. Regarding the test settings: If c++11 is supposed to be the lowest official supported version then that is what should be tested Anything else doesn't make sense (you can't claim to support c++11 if you don't test if it actually works there). In any case, as was mentioned before, for the announcement itself we don't need give any specifics about something that is going to happen 1-1,5 years from now. How about something like " c++03 mode/compilation will no longer be tested / part off the general test/suit"? Best Mike

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A possible date for dropping c++03 support
by Mike Dev 31 Aug '18

31 Aug '18

Please, let's not derail the discussion just after some consensus has emerged and just before it actually produces actionable items. Let's not make the better the enemy of the good here. I made the suggestion to commonly drop c++03 support in the hope that it would actually lead to some code simplifications and reduced coupling between the boost libraries - even if only in their implementation (if someone wanted to do a real c++14 reboot of their library, no one is/was stopping them anyway). >From the survey, Id' say interest in actually applying c++11 features in libraries that a currently supporting 03 is already relatively low, but big enough that I believe this will actually lead to some changes other than just changing the default test settings. That is with a standard almost universally supported by compilers in use today. Even though the move from 11 to 14 is much less dramatic, c++14 support is less wide spread and outside of the big three, there are many compilers where even the most recent version doesn't support c++14, so I just don't see people that are currently maintaining c++03 support in their libraries suddenly starting to use c++14. All this doesn't preclude a discussion about if and when to move to c++14 or a general policy about LTS versions and the like, but please keep it separate unless you are really, really confident it will lead to something actionable earlier than what is currently proposed. I have lots of Ideas, how boost could be reformed and/or modernized but in the end it comes down to convince the individual library maintainers to actually do something. I think the current proposal will at least spark some action. Let announcement to move to cmake be a warning sign about realistic expectations about the evolution of boost. Maybe I'm aiming too low, but again, if you want more, please open a separate thread and most likely, whatever you come up with there will not be mutually exclusive with what is proposed here. Regarding the test settings: If c++11 is supposed to be the lowest official supported version then that is what should be tested Anything else doesn't make sense (you can't claim to support c++11 if you don't test if it actually works there). In any case, as was mentioned before, for announcement itself we don't need give any specifics about something that is going to happen 1-1,5 years from now. How about something like " c++03 mode/compilation will no longer be tested / part off the general test/suit"? Best Michael

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A possible date for dropping c++03 support
by Mike Dev 30 Aug '18

30 Aug '18

>From the discussion about abi compatibility when the Boost.System library is compiled e.g. in c++03 mode and then included in ac++11 project or vice versa (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/boost-developers-archive/EWG5NVOZo_ g) > > When can we drop C++03 support? :D This will probably be ignored or shouted down, but maybe someone just needs to make a concrete suggestion about which people can discuss and vote so I'm giving it a shot: What about the first or second release in 2020 ? By then, all major toolchains have had solid c++11 support for at least 5 years ( I think, msvc was the last one with VS2015) and at least partial support for 7+ years (gcc 4.8, msvc 2013, clang 3.3). Also, most likely c++20 will be released in that year, which means that c++03 compatible libraries would have to support 5 different (and partial incompatible) language versions by then (not to mention ABI-compatibility considerations between different versions). That should also be enough time to ensure that the last c++03 release (late 2019) is really solid (for projects that still can't upgrade to c++11) and ideally there could be a few more bugfix-releases afterwards as is often done by other software projects. And before someone starts to raise straw mans: That of course wouldn't mean that a particular library *must* no longer compile in 03 mode, but one can no longer rely on the boost-internal dependencies remaining c++03 compatible. Best Mike

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[ptr_container] associative container insert takes reference instead of const reference as key ?
by comic fans 30 Aug '18

30 Aug '18

Hello , I've found that ptr_unordered_map.insert has following signature (from code and latest doc) std::pair<iterator,bool> insert( key_type& k, T* x ); that forbids calls like ptr_unordered_map.insert( myobj->id(), myobj) ,I wonder if this is by design , or some other reason ? why other overload takes const key_type& k as key type? and insert always call insert_impl which have const reference as key type ? any help would be appreciated.

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c++03 library survey
by Mike Dev 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

Hello everyone, this is closely related to the thread about "A possible date for dropping c++03 support" (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/boost-developers-archive/i4UM-GfNu8w) but this is NOT meant as a vote on the suggestion, and I'd ask you to keep discussions to that thread. For the actually important part, please scroll down to the double line (===) For reference however, my suggestion was that c++03 support is officially dropped somewhere around early 2020 across all of boost. Which would mean, that from then onwards any library author could start to unconditionally use c++11 features in his library without prior announcement or transition period, even if other boost libraries that currently support c++03 have a dependency on it. (Again, if you have questions or comments about this, please answer on the other thread) Somewhat late, I realized I first should have asked if / how much actual interest there is from the side of the library maintainers in the first place, because whatever the majority of the people on the ML thinks, it obviously won't have any effect if the actually affected people don't have any interest in using c++11 in the first place. Full disclosure: I'm not a boost contributor myself (at least nothing significant) but as a user, I have an interest in boost libraries becoming simpler, less entangled with each other and providing less types that are redundant in c++11 and later. You could call that more lightweight but that is a different topic. So, to get some idea if there is any interest in this topic, I'd ask each maintainer that is currently maintaining a c++03 compatible library to answer the following questions: =======Please quote from here ====================================== - Which library/ies are you maintaining? (I assume this isn't some sort of private information - otherwise ignore the question) - Would you like to unconditionally use c++11 features if you would not have to worry about this breaking boost internal users? - Would you like to unconditionally use c++11 features if you would not have to worry about this breaking any users? - Would you deprecate your library completely if there were no boost-internal users and your current dependencies required c++11 (e.g. because your library has been merged into the c++11 standard library anyway) - Are you yourself using any boost library (in an up-to-date version) in a c++03, non-boost project? - Do you have any Idea if the latest versions of your library is used by any important/significant number of c++02 projects? [It is only important if *you* consider those projects important and or the number significant] =======Please quote till here ====================================== Note: When I'm talking about breaking users I mean breaking due to requiring c++11 compiler, not because you completely rewrite the API based on new c++11 idoms - that would probably better be done in a completely new library. Best regards and thank you for your time Mike

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Re: [boost] A possible date for dropping c++03 support
by Glen Fernandes 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

Edward Diener wrote: > Other than not removing useful Boost libraries which support c++03 as > well as all subsequent C++ standard levels, and not telling people that > they can not use such libraries in c++03 mode if they actually want to > do so, I am perfectly willing to let others, including yourself, decide > the best way in which support for c++03 in Boost is reduced. My argument > has always been that putting a generalized statement on the website, > without explaining what it actually entails as far as using Boost l> ibraries is concerned, is going to lead to confusion and puzzlement > from end-users and endless questions. What can it possibly cost to > actually explain of what "Boost dropping support for c++03" actually > consists, when it is finally decided what Boost is going to do in this > area ? If it is a matter of correct grammar or exposition in the > explanation, I will gladly volunteer to write it if no one else wants to > do so. +1. It sounds like what we're going to communicate to users is that Boost library authors or maintainers are no longer required to make their libraries support C++03. Which sounds fine to me. I don't think library maintainers should be confined by users (even if the users are other Boost libraries) if they don't want to be. Any Boost library maintainers that wish to continue supporting their C++03 users will do so. Any other Boost library maintainers that depend on such libraries can drop the dependency on those libraries. Glen

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Re: [boost] A possible date for dropping c++03 support
by Glen Fernandes 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

James King wrote: > I thought Peter Dimov got it right from the comment I saw earlier. > The project would no longer spend time and effort on qualifying or testing > C++03 compatibility. CI builds and the test matrix would no longer > specifically test C++03. The default language level for b2 builds would be C++11. Sounds right. All of these above is a much more useful statement to make to users. > Individual repository maintainers could attempt to continue to qualify > for C++03 however once an upstream dependency begins to include > C++11 code, that effort would have to give way. If an upstream dependency only works in C++11 and above, and the library maintainer wants to support C++03, they can either: A) Drop the dependency and still support C++03 B) Drop C++03 support But again it will be up to that library maintainer. > As a developer both working on and > consuming boost I would appreciate the permission to start using C++11 > without fear. You will be able to start using C++11 in the libraries that you maintain, without fear. You won't be able to force another library maintainer to let you use C++11 unconditionally in their library if they want to support C++03 users. Glen

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BOOST_FOREACH on a filesystem directory_iterator?
by Peter Dimov 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

Boost.Filesystem apparently contains support for BOOST_FOREACH: https://github.com/boostorg/filesystem/blob/5a93351bfdf859ee47245e042973922… But it doesn't work: #include <boost/filesystem.hpp> #include <boost/foreach.hpp> namespace fs = boost::filesystem; int main() { fs::directory_iterator it; BOOST_FOREACH( fs::path const& p, it ) { } } 1>c:\boost-git\develop\boost/range/end.hpp(48) : error C2039: 'end' : is not a member of 'boost::filesystem::directory_iterator' The fix is trivial, but I wonder... how did nobody notice? Is this feature never used?

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Future of the MaybeBoost Hash Library
by Ilia K 29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18

Hi! I was looking for a header-only library to compute SHA512 and found a very interesting project: The MaybeBoost Hash Library ( https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~smcmur/hash/) that implements SHA/MD5 ect. In 2010 there was a discussion ( http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/rfc-Preliminary-Hash-Library-td2668722.h…) about making it one of the Boost subprojects but nothing happened. Maybe some of you guys know what's the matter? -- - Ilia

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