May 2020 - 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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Adding my sorting algorithm, ska_sort, to boost, attempt 2
by Malte Skarupke 24 Nov '21

24 Nov '21

Hi everyone, I started a discussion about this in October, but at the time the maintainer of the sort library was busy, then I was busy, so now it's January... I wrote a generalized version of radix sort a couple years ago and gave a talk about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqs87a_7zxw I would like to get a new version of that sorting algorithm into boost. It's faster than what I showed several years ago. It's also even more general and has a new interface that should be easier to extend. I uploaded the code here: https://github.com/skarupke/sort/tree/master The documentation is also already updated with new benchmark results. Let me know what's required to get this into boost. Would you like this in the form of a pull request? One of the big things that probably needs review is the interface, since radix sorting works differently than comparison based sorting. For most normal uses you just need to provide a sort key, but more complicated cases can get more complicated. I tried very hard to make everything easy, but I'd also be curious if others can come up with better ways of doing the interface. Thanks, Malte -- Malte Skarupke malteskarupke(a)fastmail.fm

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[container] Proposal for ring queues
by Andrey Semashev 17 Jun '20

17 Jun '20

Hi, Some time ago I have proposed to include ring_queue and small_ring_queue containers to Boost.Container: https://github.com/boostorg/container/pull/121 The ring queues work similarly to std::queue with the main difference being that they use a ring buffer internally to store elements. The small_ring_queue also allows to allocate a static storage for a fixed amount of elements. The benefit of this is that dynamic memory allocations can be practically avoided when the number of enqueued elements does not exceed some limit. In his reply in that PR Ion was not very enthusiastic about including these containers into Boost.Container mostly because (a) there was presumably not much interest from users and (b) because the current implementation requires C++17 while Boost.Container supports C++03. I would like to ask if there is interest in the community for these kinds of containers. I know I would find them useful, and at least one person commented in the PR to the same effect. However, I would still like to see if more people need this. If there is interest, what would be the preferred course of action? 1. Should we work on inclusion into Boost.Container or maybe some other library? Candidates? Boost.CircularBuffer was mentioned in the PR, although I'm not sure it is suitable for these components. Creating a new submodule is also a possibility, although it seems like an overkill. 2. Somewhat related to p.1, what minimum C++ version is preferred. E.g. if we agree that Boost.Container is the right place for these components, I could work on lowering minimum C++ version, although C++03 would complicate things considerably. Thanks.

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[review][LEAF] Review of LEAF starts today : May 22 - May 31
by Michael Caisse 08 Jun '20

08 Jun '20

The Boost formal review of Emil Dotchevski's LEAF (Lightweight Error Augmentation Framework) library will take place from May 22 through May 31st. LEAF isn't just another error reporting library in the family of expected-like types. It provides a unique take on error handling which plays into usability, flexibility, and performance. Every software developer must deal with handling errors which makes this review relevant to all. Please participate! I will be grateful to receive a review based on whatever level of effort or time you can devote. LEAF is brought to us by Emil Dotchevski, the author of Boost.Exception. Similar to Boost.Exception, this library allows arbitrary error objects to be returned; however, unlike Boost.Exception it does not require dynamic memory. The library can be used with or without exception handling. The LEAF documentation highlights the following features: * Efficient delivery of arbitrary error objects to the correct error handling scope. * No dynamic memory allocations. * Compatible with std::error_code, errno and any other error code type. * Can be used with or without exception handling. * Support for multi-thread programming. "LEAF is designed with a strong bias towards the common use case where callers of functions which may fail check for success and forward errors up the call chain but do not handle them." LEAF offers a pattern matching facility to specify which errors to handle and how to handle them. Take a look at the 5-minute Introduction. <https://zajo.github.io/leaf/#introduction> You can find the source code to be reviewed here: <https://github.com/zajo/leaf/tree/review> You can find the documentation here: <https://zajo.github.io/leaf/> The documentation includes a tutorial, examples, reference, design rationale, and comparisons to other error handling approaches/libraries. There is a benchmark document also: <https://github.com/zajo/leaf/blob/master/benchmark/benchmark.md> and a whitepaper: <https://github.com/zajo/leaf/blob/master/doc/whitepaper.md> Please provide in your review information you think is valuable to understand your choice to ACCEPT or REJECT including LEAF as a Boost library. Please be explicit about your decision (ACCEPT or REJECT). Some other questions you might want to consider answering: - 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 which compiler(s)? 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? More information about the Boost Formal Review Process can be found here: <http://www.boost.org/community/reviews.html> Thank you for your effort in the Boost community. Happy coding - michael -- Michael Caisse Ciere Consulting ciere.com

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[atomic] Bikeshedding over address-free waiting/notifying operation names
by Andrey Semashev 07 Jun '20

07 Jun '20

Hi, As some of you may know, C++20 added new waiting/notifying operations to std::atomic: wait, notify_one and notify_all. These operations are not address-free, i.e. their implementation is allowed to use process-local addresses of the atomics as keys. In particular, it means you can't use them for inter-process communication. In Boost.Atomic I intend to provide address-free variants as well, where possible, and I'm thinking about the naming scheme for them. Currently, I'm using the "_address_free" suffix, so we have wait_address_free, notify_one_address_free and notify_all_address_free. The "address-free" term comes from the C++ standard, but the resulting names seem a bit long. Maybe there are better suggestions? Thanks.

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[epochs] Internal relevance in post-C++03 Boost of Boost03 components vs. standard equivalents
by Joaquin M López Muñoz 05 Jun '20

05 Jun '20

For those of you who are following the discussion on epochs, I've just prepared a report on the relevance of "legacy" components intra-Boost for these Boost libs that require C++11 (or higher) to work: https://github.com/joaquintides/boost_epoch/blob/master/boost_vs_std_intern… Quoting from the report: "It can be seen that (direct) usage of Boost03 components is residual (and in some cases due to backwards compatibility rather than for their functionality). We can draw then the conclusion that newer Boost libraries are already dismissing legacy dependencies when the standard environment offers alternatives." Best, Joaquín M López Muñoz

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Re: [boost] [review][LEAF] Review of LEAF starts today : May 22 - May 31
by Bjorn Reese 02 Jun '20

02 Jun '20

On 2020-05-22 11:31, Michael Caisse via Boost wrote: > Please provide in your review information you think is valuable to > understand your choice to ACCEPT or REJECT including LEAF as a > Boost library. Please be explicit about your decision (ACCEPT or REJECT). I vote to conditionally accept LEAF into Boost. LEAF provides a new perspective on error propagation that is worth exploring in the real world. The conditions for acceptance are: 1. Provide a lower-level API for error handling which does not necessitate a pattern matching framework. I would prefer an API closer to the variant::index() and std::get<I>() combination that enables you to write the error handling as switch statements. More rationale for this request is given under the design evaluation. > - What is your evaluation of the design? LEAF propagates error objects across multiple function calls by letting the callee store the error payload directly in a stack object, called the error context, at the caller. A pointer to the error context is located in thread-local storage. When there are more error contexts on the call stack, they are daisy chained via pointers in the child error context. This is a sound design, which gives LEAF an efficient way of propagating error payloads then a failure occurs. I like that the returned error_id can be passed through C code. There is runtime overhead in creating and destroying the error contexts even when no failure occurs. Whether or not that overhead is acceptable depends on circumstances. It seems to me that the noexcept performance overhead in the successful case and the failure case are not that different (assuming the error payload is not too heavy), so it may be a good idea to choose LEAF when worst-case performance is more important than average-case performance. The more I experimented with LEAF, the more I wished that there was an error handing API with less syntatic sugar. 1. Single-stepping into a TryBlock is really cumbersome. The developer has to single-step through layers of unfamiliar templated code before reaching their own TryBlock. This interrrupts their flow. Setting a breakpoint in the TryBlock helps but is still cumbersome. 2. Some compilation errors are difficult to interpret. For example, if you accidentally omit a required return statement in one of the try_handle_all handlers, then the compiler reports the start of the try_handle_all statement and some internal LEAF voodoo. If you are experienced with reading templates errors, then you may be able to discover the erroneous handler from the LEAF template parameters in the compiler output. The LEAF handling is reminiscient of a variant visitor, but with the variants we can use index() and std::get<T> in a switch statement instead of visitation. I would like to see something similar for LEAF error contexts. I am undecided about the reliance on thread-local storage. Initially I thought that we could just replace thread-local storage with a home- made lookup table using atomics (which are generally available on OS-less platforms, whereas mutexes etc are not,) but Niall's mention of consteval made me unsure (damn you Niall ;-) However, I do not see this as a show-stopper. The try_handle_all() and try_handle_some() functions have different return values. While I understand the rationale given in the reference documentation, it may still be confusing to users if they change from one to the other. This could possibly be solved by making it more clear in the documentation. The remote_handle_all() name is confusing. I would rename it to nested_handle_all(). > - What is your evaluation of the implementation? The implementation is of high quality, and reasonably readable if you are comfortable with templates. I did not do a proper code review, so the following are random notes. Some classes (leaf::result and the internal optional) uses placement-new and explicit destructor calls. I suggest that you create your own construct_at() and destruct_at() which uses the std counterparts when available, and placement-new / explicit destruction otherwise. This will make the code more readable. std::ostream is entangled into various classes for printing. I would prefer if printing was moved into seperate X_io.hpp files to speed up compilation times when not using them. The LEAF_CONSTEXPR should be renamed to LEAF_CXX14_CONSTEXPR to align with the BOOST_CXX14_CONSTEXPR naming. Also the #if should use '>=' instead of '>'. config.h includes <Windows.h>. This should be replaced with Boost.WinAPI. > - What is your evaluation of the documentation? Overall the documentation is well-presented. The examples reconfigures std::cout to throw exceptions. That obscures the examples because now the reader has to learn LEAF and how std::cout exceptions work at the same time. It would be better to move the std::cout exception stuff into a separate example which is only about std::cout. > - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? LEAF presents a unique error handling solution, that may be useful to certain users. I do not expect a huge user base though, as LEAF users mainly are going to be projects with requirements not met by the alternatives. > - Did you try to use the library? With which compiler(s)? Did you > have any problems? I experimented with small examples and found no compiler-related issues. > - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick > reading? In-depth study? About 6 hours. Spent most time trying understanding the design than reviewing the code and documentation. > - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? Yes.

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Relevance of platfrom-specific shared_ptr implementations
by Peter Dimov 01 Jun '20

01 Jun '20

Greetings, shared_ptr has a number of platform-specific implementations for its control block, specifically the atomic reference count manipulation: https://github.com/boostorg/smart_ptr/blob/develop/include/boost/smart_ptr/… Those have been accumulated over the years and I'd like to clean them up, remove the unused ones and fold as many of them as possible into a few generic implementations using either std::atomic, GCC atomic intrinsics (https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-10.1.0/gcc/_005f_005fatomic-Builtins.html) or GCC/intel sync intrinsics (https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-10.1.0/gcc/_005f_005fsync-Builtins.html) But I have no experience with non-x86 platforms and don't know where boost::shared_ptr is still used and which of the platform-specific implementations are still needed. (Neither do I know on which platforms the atomic and the sync intrinsics actually work, as opposed to just compile and then fail to link.) Any information along these lines is welcome. If you know of a platform where boost::shared_ptr is still used, but which supports none of the "modern" ways to implement atomic ops, please let me know. If you would like some of the plaform-specific files to be retained, please let me know. Thanks in advance.

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Re: [boost] Relevance of platfrom-specific shared_ptr implementations
by Bjorn Reese 31 May '20

31 May '20

On 2020-05-31 17:18, Peter Dimov via Boost wrote: > Those have been accumulated over the years and I'd like to clean them > up, remove the unused ones and fold as many of them as possible into a > few generic implementations using either std::atomic, GCC atomic > intrinsics > (https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-10.1.0/gcc/_005f_005fatomic-Builtins.html) > or GCC/intel sync intrinsics > (https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-10.1.0/gcc/_005f_005fsync-Builtins.html) How about a fall-back to Boost.Atomic?

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Re: [boost] boost reviewLEAF Review of LEAF starts today : May 22 - May 31
by Jess 29 May '20

29 May '20

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[review][LEAF] Review period ending soon - May 31
by Michael Caisse 28 May '20

28 May '20

I'd like to encourage each of you to review Emil's error handling library. We often focus on design or implementation based reviews, and I encourage those but what I would really like to see are more user based reviews. Grab the library and docs and play with it a bit. What works well? What can be improved? As a reminder, some of LEAF's features include: * arbitrary error types * header-only * no dependencies * use without exceptions * use with exceptions * no dynamic memory alloc You can find the documentation here: <https://zajo.github.io/leaf/> and the library source here: <https://github.com/zajo/leaf/tree/review> Thanks! michael -- Michael Caisse Ciere Consulting ciere.com

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[epochs] Proposal for an epoch-based organization of Boost libraries
by Joaquin M López Muñoz 28 May '20

28 May '20

Hi, Prompted by general feelings about Boost perceived lack of modernization and internal "bloat", and after an explicit survey on what users dislike about Boost [1], I decided to try and write a more or less fleshed out proposal for an epoch-based organization of Boost libraries. I've extensively tested and refined the proposal during discussions on Reddit and the Boost Slack channel, and I feel this is now ready for presentation at the mailing list: https://github.com/joaquintides/boost_epoch/blob/master/README.md I hope the proposal can start a productive conversation. Looking forward to your feedback. Best, Joaquín M López Muñoz [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/gfowpq/why_you_dont_use_boost/

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Optional library
by anshu khare 27 May '20

27 May '20

Hi mentors I was going through the optional library of boost. I was facing some problem in understanding the code base. In lines from 94 to 97 in optional.hpp, the code is as follows: struct in_place_init_if_t { Struct init_tag{}; explicit in_place_init_if_t(init_tag) {} //not able to understand this line }; I understand that we are creating a structure in_place_init_if_t and inside that we are creating another structure init_tag and then we are calling the constructor of in_place_init_if_t. But I am not able to understand that what does it the constructor do when we pass init_tag as an argument to it. Is it same as we are creating a structure Car and then creating another structure wheels inside it and passing wheels as an argument to the constructor of car as follows: struct car { Struct wheels{}; explicit car(wheels) {} //not able to understand this line }; Could you please tell what is the significance of passing wheels as an argument in this counter example?

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[LEAF] Loss of error_id
by Bjorn Reese 26 May '20

26 May '20

In the noexcept case, what happens in the Error-Handling function if the error_id generated by the Error-Reporting function is lost by the intermediate functions?

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Request for 1.73 patch release
by Richard Hodges 25 May '20

25 May '20

Dear all, Just prior to the release of boost 1.73, some changes appeared in Asio which use the new c++20 concepts (and concepts-ts) features where available. These changes have introduced breakage in Beast in compilers where concepts are enabled. Examples are gcc=10 and clang10 with -std=c++20. I have pushed a fix to beast/develop to address this, but sadly we only became aware of the problem after the release of boost 1.73.0 I suspect the cause here is a combination of my relatively new appointment as a Beast maintainer and the ground-breaking event which I am sure c++20 will prove to be. I welcome any guidance on preparing or initiating a patch release as I lack the Arcane Knowledge required. For information, here is a link to the commit which fixes the problem: https://github.com/boostorg/beast/pull/1927 And some bug reports that alerted us that somethig was wrong: https://github.com/boostorg/beast/issues/1916 https://github.com/boostorg/beast/issues/1925 -- Richard Hodges hodges.r(a)gmail.com office: +442032898513 home: +376841522 mobile: +376380212

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Re: [boost] [LEAF] The usage of TLS
by Bjorn Reese 22 May '20

22 May '20

On 2020-05-04 01:15, Andrzej Krzemienski via Boost wrote: > There is a number of reasons people do not want to or cannot use the C++ > exception handling mechanism. One of them is that the implementation of > exception handling requires the usage of TLS, and TLS is not implementable > on some platforms, like GPUs. If Nvidia's compiler does not implement C++ > exception handling mechanism, it is not because it would be slow, but > because it would require TLS support. From this perspective, if I cannot > use C++ exceptions because of TLS and I have to use something else, then > another TLS-based library is not really an alternative. In this case it > does not matter that it is only IDs that are stored in TLS. The sole fact > of even employing TLS is a deal breaker. LEAF really only needs one thread-local pointer to the topmost context per thread, so it may be possible to replace the thread-local storage with a global lock-free hash table. A lock-free hash table only requires atomic support, which is generally available on GPUs and microcontrollers. The key of the hash table could be the thread id. Task-based RTOS systems could use its task handle instead. An example of a lock-free hash table: https://eourcs.github.io/LockFreeCuckooHash/

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Re: [boost] [container] Proposal for ring queues
by Bjorn Reese 22 May '20

22 May '20

On 2020-05-22 00:17, Andrey Semashev via Boost wrote: > I would like to ask if there is interest in the community for these > kinds of containers. I know I would find them useful, and at least one > person commented in the PR to the same effect. However, I would still > like to see if more people need this. Do notice that we also have this proposal floating around: https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2019/09/246925.php https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2020/05/248871.php

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Help sought with identifying failure cases on the boost.org test matrix
by Richard Hodges 22 May '20

22 May '20

Dear all, Looking here: https://www.boost.org/development/tests/master/developer/beast.html We're seeing a lot of yellow, but when I run tests locally I get 100% passes. I'm reaching out to anyone who might have information on how I can replicate the steps to failure, and then either fix the problem or help the test host correct the configuration, as appropriate. Many thanks for your time. -- Richard Hodges hodges.r(a)gmail.com office: +442032898513 home: +376841522 mobile: +376380212

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[Bimap] Maintenance
by Matias Capeletto 21 May '20

21 May '20

Hello Some Boost.Bimap's maintenance PRs have remained unmerged. The library also hasn't been following additions to the STL that should be mapped in the provided containers and implementing proper support for move semantics, between other features. Since I haven't been involved in C++ for a while, I am not currently in a position to push for a new version and I would prefer to allow other people to become a maintainer. What is the process to enable other maintainers to push the library forward? Best Matias

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Review Wizard Status Report for May 2020
by Mateusz Loskot 20 May '20

20 May '20

============================================== Review Wizard Status Report for May 2020 ============================================== News ==== List of events that happened since the last report in 2016 is long and includes 13 releases of Boost, 21 libraries accepted and 4 libraries rejected. Details at https://www.boost.org/community/review_schedule.html What happened in 2020: 1. 2020-01: Ronald Garcia retired as a Review Wizard. Thank you Ronald! 2. 2020-02: StaticString accepted 3. 2020-04: Boost 1.73 Released New Libraries: - Nowide from Artyom Beilis, maintained by Alexander Grund - StaticString from Vinnie Falco and Krystian Stasiowski 4. 2020-05: Bimap library needs a maintainer https://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2020/05/248940.php Review Schedule Status ====================== The following libraries need a review manager: * JSON - author: Vinnie Falco, Krystian Stasiowski, Peter Dimov The following libraries have review managers, but have not yet been scheduled for review: * none The following libraries have review managers and have been scheduled for review: * LEAF - May 22, 2020 - May 31, 2020; author: Emil Dotchevski; review manager: Michael Caisse * Text - June 11, 2020 - June 20, 2020; author: Zach Laine; review manager: Glen Fernandes The following libraries have been reviewed and await reports from their review managers: * none The following libraries have been accepted to Boost, but have not yet been integrated into Boost Git: * Double-Ended - conditionally accepted in October 2017; author: Benedek Thaler * Parallel Sorting Sub-library - accepted November 2016; author: Francisco José Tapia The following libraries have been accepted and submitted to Boost Git, but have not yet appeared in a release: * STLInterfaces - conditionally accepted December 2019; author: Zach Laine The following libraries have been accepted provisionally to Boost, but have not been submitted for mini-review and full acceptance: * STLInterfaces - conditionally accepted December 2019; author: Zach Laine General Announcements ===================== As always, we need experienced review managers. Please take a look at the list of libraries in need of managers and check out their descriptions. In general review managers are active boost participants, including library contributors, infrastructure contributors, and other mailing list participants with a substantial track record of constructive participation. If you can serve as review manager for any of them, email us at Mateusz Loskot (mateusz at loskot dot net) or John Phillips (johnphillipsithaca at gmail dot com). We are also suffering from a lack of reviewers. While we all understand time pressures and the need to complete paying work, the strength of Boost is based on the detailed and informed reviews submitted by you. If you are interested in reviewing a library but won't have time during the review period, you can always prepare your review ahead of time. No rule says you can only work on a review during the review period. A link to this report will be posted to www.boost.org. If you would like us to make any modifications or additions to this report, please email Mateusz. The review schedule is an unordered list of the libraries awaiting review. As such, any library on the schedule can be reviewed once the developer is ready, a review manager has been secured, and the manager, developer, and wizards agree on a date to schedule the review. Best regards, -- Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net

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[interprocess] Mutex and condition at process termination
by Phil Endecott 20 May '20

20 May '20

Dear Experts, Can we improve how interprocess mutexes and condition variables behave on process termination? Currently if a process terminates (i.e. it crashes, or you press ctrl-C), the interprocess docs say nothing as far as I can see about what happens to locked mutexes and awaited conditions. In practice it seems that mutexes that were locked remain locked, and other processes will deadlock. (I'm using Linux.) A few thoughts: * If a process were only reading the shared state, then it would be appropriate for the mutex to be unlocked on termination. * If a process were modifying the shared state, then it would be wrong to unconditionally unlock the mutex. So it would be useful to distinguish between reader and writer locks, even if we're not implementing a single-writer/multiple-reader mutex. * The system could be made more robust by blocking signals while a mutex is locked. This doesn't help with crashes, e.g. segfaults, but it would help with ctrl-C. * It may be useful to cause all processes to terminate if one of them terminates with a mutex held for writing, either immediately or as soon as they try to lock the same mutex. Perhaps also to delete the presumed-corrupted shared memory segment. * PTHREAD_MUTEX_ROBUST might be part of the solution. That seems to require the non-crashed process to do clean up, i.e. we would need to record whether the crashed process were reading or writing and react appropriately. I'm less clear about what happens to condition variables, but it does seem that perhaps terminating a process while it is waiting on a condition will cause other processes to deadlock. Perhaps the wait conceptually returns and the mutex is re-locked during termination. I have encountered this while trying to use a simple diagnostic program that just dumps some shared memory data structures and waits on a condition in a loop. I run this for a while and then press ctrl-C. Yes, a while after I disconnect the diagnostic program the system crashes... the worst sort of bug! Regards, Phil.

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Embarcadero PRs
by Edward Diener 20 May '20

20 May '20

I have PRs for these libraries, which have passed CI testing, for distinguishing the Embarcadero C++ clang-based compilers from the legacy bcc32 compiler: beast thread regex container python program_options units circular_buffer graph parameter unordered random typeof Can the maintainers of these libraries please merge the appropriate PR ? The PR should not affect any other compiler, and it gives a chance for the Embarcadero C++ clang-based compiler(s) to use the appropriate Boost library even when some lacking feature or Embarcadero bug currently prevents the full functionality of the library to be used.

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Re: [boost] [B2] Propagate CXX requirements to consumers
by Nikita Kniazev 19 May '20

19 May '20

> I guess this could be solved if B2 allows negation. So I can say: > `<target-os>not windows:<build>no `. > Does this exist? It is supported, but was broken until recently https://github.com/boostorg/build/pull/594

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BOOST_NO_CXX11_HDR_CHRONO?
by Frédéric 19 May '20

19 May '20

Hi, When I compile the following program: #include <boost/math/constants/constants.hpp> #include <chrono> int main() { return 0; } with a osx cross compiler based on clang 9 on linux,I get the following warnings (full output below): CAUTION: This message was generated due to the define: BOOST_NO_CXX11_HDR_CHRONO [-W#pragma-messages] This is quite strange as the compiler generates the binary which means there was no issue to find <chrono>. What's wrong then? Kind regards, F $ x86_64-apple-darwin13-clang++-libc++ -o boost_math_constants -Wall -Wextra -std=c++14 -m64 -mmacosx-version-min=10.9 -I/softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include boost_math_constants.cpp In file included from Progs/boost_math_constants.cpp:1: In file included from /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/constants/constants.hpp:11: /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/tools/cxx03_warn.hpp:99:1: warning: CAUTION: One or more C++11 features were found to be unavailable [-W#pragma-messages] BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE("CAUTION: One or more C++11 features were found to be unavailable") ^ /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/config/pragma_message.hpp:24:34: note: expanded from macro 'BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE' # define BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE(x) _Pragma(BOOST_STRINGIZE(message(x))) ^ <scratch space>:307:2: note: expanded from here message("CAUTION: One or more C++11 features were found to be unavailable") ^ In file included from Progs/boost_math_constants.cpp:1: In file included from /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/constants/constants.hpp:11: /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/tools/cxx03_warn.hpp:100:1: warning: CAUTION: Compiling Boost.Math in pre-C++11 conformance modes is now deprecated and will be removed from March 2021. [-W#pragma-messages] BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE("CAUTION: Compiling Boost.Math in pre-C++11 conformance modes is now deprecated and will be removed from March 2021.") ^ /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/config/pragma_message.hpp:24:34: note: expanded from macro 'BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE' # define BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE(x) _Pragma(BOOST_STRINGIZE(message(x))) ^ <scratch space>:310:2: note: expanded from here message("CAUTION: Compiling Boost.Math in pre-C++11 conformance modes is now deprecated and will be removed from March 2021.") ^ In file included from Progs/boost_math_constants.cpp:1: In file included from /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/constants/constants.hpp:11: /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/tools/cxx03_warn.hpp:101:1: warning: CAUTION: Define BOOST_MATH_DISABLE_DEPRECATED_03_WARNING to suppress this message. [-W#pragma-messages] BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE("CAUTION: Define BOOST_MATH_DISABLE_DEPRECATED_03_WARNING to suppress this message.") ^ /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/config/pragma_message.hpp:24:34: note: expanded from macro 'BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE' # define BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE(x) _Pragma(BOOST_STRINGIZE(message(x))) ^ <scratch space>:313:2: note: expanded from here message("CAUTION: Define BOOST_MATH_DISABLE_DEPRECATED_03_WARNING to suppress this message.") ^ In file included from Progs/boost_math_constants.cpp:1: In file included from /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/constants/constants.hpp:11: /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/math/tools/cxx03_warn.hpp:102:1: warning: CAUTION: This message was generated due to the define: BOOST_NO_CXX11_HDR_CHRONO [-W#pragma-messages] BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE("CAUTION: This message was generated due to the define: " BOOST_MATH_CXX03_WARN_REASON) ^ /softs/osx64-clang-9.0.1/release/boost/include/boost/config/pragma_message.hpp:24:34: note: expanded from macro 'BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE' # define BOOST_PRAGMA_MESSAGE(x) _Pragma(BOOST_STRINGIZE(message(x))) ^ <scratch space>:316:2: note: expanded from here message("CAUTION: This message was generated due to the define: " "BOOST_NO_CXX11_HDR_CHRONO") ^ 4 warnings generated.

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[Config] Swappable/Movable std::streambuf requirement
by Alexander Grund 18 May '20

18 May '20

Hello, C++11 has `std::basic_streambuf<char>::swap` and move operators for that defined. However there are stdlibs which don't support that. clang 5.0 on travis e.g. fails due to that. Is there already something in Boost.Config dealing with that case which I can `requires` on to skip the build for that case? Most of the checks I've seen in Boost.Config are using the C++ feature test macros but for this there is none. If it doesn't exist: Would this be something to be added to Boost.Config? Or my local build files? How would such a test work? Can anyone point me to a similar example? I'm having trouble navigating over the many partially auto-generated files in Boost.Config. Thanks, Alex

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Continued Fraction library/extension for Boost
by Fahad Syed 14 May '20

14 May '20

Hello, I am an Electrical Engineering fresher at National Institute of Technology, Srinagar. I have a proposal for a Continued Fraction class, with all arithmetic implemented through Gosper's HAKMEM algorithm. Here are some advantages/applications I can think of right now for a continued fraction representation: 1. Exact, base-independant representation of rationals AND irrationals (of course limited by the precision required) 2. Unlike rationals where numerator and denominator need to be "canonicalized" (i.e. divided by gcd for optimal representation), continued fraction arithmetic incorporates that naturally. 3. Approximation: Continued fraction give the best possible rational approximation for a given number 4. Comparison is extremely easy and fast 5. Conversion to float and base-conversion do not require division. Conversion to float, especially, is extremely fast and simple. I propose to implement most of the functions supported by the multi-precision library. Although I am sure there are many more applications and advantages, I would like some feedback on whether this library/extension would be of enough interest to be included in boost. Thank you.

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[Filesystem] Directory entry caching
by Chris Glover 13 May '20

13 May '20

Hi All, Whatever happened to the work in this branch https://github.com/boostorg/filesystem/tree/feature/directory-entry-cache-r… that looks to implement this paper? http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2016/p0317r1.html Wondering if it's planned, dead, or looking for someone to do the work. I ran into the problem today by chance. -- chris

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[Range] Transform in place
by Frederick Gotham 11 May '20

11 May '20

Earlier today I wrote the following two lines of code: auto const my_range = v | boost::adaptors::sliced(1,15) | boost::adaptors::strided(2); boost::range::transform( my_range, my_range.begin(), std::bit_not<uint8_t>() ); However it would have been nice as a one-liner: boost::range::transform( v | boost::adaptors::sliced(1,15) | boost::adaptors::strided(2), std::bit_not<uint8_t>() ); Why isn't there a form of "range::transform" that can transform in place (and therefore takes exactly two arguments)?

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Boost.Asio's service_registry::do_use_service may block forever if a service with the same key was created
by Niklas Gürtler 11 May '20

11 May '20

Hello boost developers, I found a bug in Boost.Asio on Windows using IOCP that can make the service_registry::do_use_service block forever if a service with the same key was created and registered while the mutex was unlocked. If the service uses win_iocp_io_context, its destructor (implicitly called upon return, by destroying new_service) will join() the internal thread for IOCP handling, without requesting it to stop before. This will leave both threads to block forever, while the mutex_ is still locked (lock's destructor may be called after new_services), which may cause further blockages in other threads. I submitted a PR ( https://github.com/boostorg/asio/pull/350 ) which aims to fix this by calling shutdown() on the thread before returning, and unlocking the mutex explicitly before that. Another solution would be to call shutdown() from within win_iocp_io_context::~win_iocp_io_context(). Regards, Niklas Gürtler

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Boost and unsigned chars
by REIX, Tony 11 May '20

11 May '20

Hi, I have tried to build Boost, and mainly Boost.math, with -funsigned-char, and I’ve faced several issues. Is Boost designed to work with unsigned chars (default on AIX) in addition to signed chars (default on Fedora)? Thanks Tony

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Google Summer of Code 2020 selected projects
by David Bellot 09 May '20

09 May '20

Dear Boost community, I would like to welcome our Google Summer of Code. 2020 students. This year, 10 students will work very very hard on improving and adding new features to many of our libraries. Once again, the competition has been very hard. A few numbers: - we received 93 proposals in total. 85 of them were complete, then we kept 47 proposals only - finally we selected 10 of them, covering 7 different Boost libraries - and countless hours of work from the most incredible team of mentors! Here are the list of projects for 2020: *Boost.Real* Kishan Shukla will be working on making the Real library ready for revision. His main goal is to reimplement the division algorithm so it can be used with any number base representation and the Karatsuba multiplication algorithm. Also, it will be working on implementing some operators and common irratianal numbers as Pi. Mentors: Laouen Belloli and Damian Vicino. *Boost.Astronomy* Syed Ali Hasan will be working on the astronomical coordinate system, he will implement different coordinate conversion using SOFA library Mentor: Pranam Lashkari Gopi Krishna Menon will be completing the parser for FITS file and also optimise the already developed components. Mentor: Sarthak Singhal *Boost.GIL* Debabrata Mandal will be implementing histogram computation as a built-in feature, algorithms for histogram analysis, image processing algorithms based on histogram and possibly integration with Boost.Histogram library. *Mentor*: Mateusz Loskot, Pranam Lashkari Olzhas Zhumabek will be extending GIL's portfolio of image processing algorithms, implementing for image scaling and sampling, Perona–Malik diffusion, Non-Maximum Suppression for object detection, Hysteresis threshold and some more. *Mentor*: Mateusz Loskot *Boost.Multiprecision* Dimitris Los will work on extending and optimizing parts of Boost.Multiprecision to higher precision of many thousands of bits or more. *Mentor*: Christopher Kormanyos *Boost.uBlas* Ashar Khan will stabilize and improve Boost.uBlas using the C++20-Standard. The main focus of his project will be enhancing code-coverage and documentation, integrating static code analysis and generating tensor concepts. *Mentor*: Cem Bassoy Tom Kwok will improve and finalize the implementation of data frames in uBlas, with the aim of delivering production-ready by the end of the summer. Data frame in uBlas are similar in functionalities to other implementations like in R, Python.Pandas or Julia. *Mentor*: David Bellot *Boost.Geometry* Tinko Bartels will work on robust yet efficient geometric predicates for Boost Geometry. *Mentor*: Vissarion Fisikopoulos *Boost.Real* Vikram Singh Chundawat will work in taking Real to revision ready state. His focus will be in improving the internal representation datatypes and providing functions required to conveniently support Taylor series. *Mentors*: Damian Vicino and Laouen Belloli Best regards, David Bellot

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[github] Retriggering CI tests
by Edward Diener 08 May '20

08 May '20

How does one retrigger CI testing for a PR on Github without having to artificially update the PR ? I tried to find the answer to this in Github Help with no success. Maybe you have to retrigger tests within the testing environment somehow but I could not see how in either Appveyor or Travis CI.

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[LEAF] The usage of TLS
by Andrzej Krzemienski 05 May '20

05 May '20

Hi Everyone, I have a remark regarding the LEAF library. But first, I would like to thank Emil for writing and sharing this library. Handling failures is an important aspect of writing programs that does not have an ultimate answer in C++, and is still a subject of exploration. LEAF seems to confirm this. I would also like to thank Michael for managing this upcoming review and for making the announcement ahead of time. A ten-day review period is usually too short (even if later extended), and the early announcement gives the opportunity to devote more time into reviewing a library and interact with the author. The following is not a review, but I wanted to highlight only one aspect of the library. Namely, the usage of thread-local storage. There is a number of reasons people do not want to or cannot use the C++ exception handling mechanism. One of them is that the implementation of exception handling requires the usage of TLS, and TLS is not implementable on some platforms, like GPUs. If Nvidia's compiler does not implement C++ exception handling mechanism, it is not because it would be slow, but because it would require TLS support. From this perspective, if I cannot use C++ exceptions because of TLS and I have to use something else, then another TLS-based library is not really an alternative. In this case it does not matter that it is only IDs that are stored in TLS. The sole fact of even employing TLS is a deal breaker. Of course, LEAF does not have to satisfy all the people that cannot use C++ exceptions. It can service the environments where TLS is affordable. But the usage or non-usage of TLS is an important factor in making a decision what tool/framework/library to use for handling failures, and because of this it deserves to be mentioned in the beginning of the documentation, so that potential clients can quickly make a decision if this library is for them. If your concern is that people would be incorrectly led to think that the entire error objects are stored in TLS, you can also say explicitly up front that it is only about int-size IDs. Otherwise, people will be mislead anyway. A person will ask, "how is it possible that this library does not return the entire error object in leaf::result<> and it does not take the pointer to the allocated object as function argument? Is it using TLS? Let's grep for `thread_local`. Positive: it must be using TLS for storing error objects." For a similar reason, I find the comparison with Boost.Outcome, at the end of documentation, unfair. If the goal of this comparison is to help people decide which library is best suited for them, LEAF or Outcome, the usage or non-usage of TLS is an important factor. Another thing is that I cannot see how a TLS-based implementation can work with C++20 coroutines. In C++ 20 the following piece of code { A(); co_await X(); B(); } means that when the call to B() will be potentially "packaged" as a task and scheduled to be executed possibly on a different thread. It means that B() will be executed on a different thread than A(), which means that any attempt to communicate between A() and B() using TLS will not be reliable (e.g. if A() is in fact a call to leaf::preload()). This is the reason why we still cannot implement the feature known as "on scope failure" (like destructor call, but only when we are leaving the scope due to exception) in C++ even though we have `std::uncaught_exceptions()` (which uses TLS under the hood). This is why a proposal like P0052 ( http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2019/p0052r10.pdf) didn't make it to C++20. Now, LEAF may have a solution to this problem, but I cannot figure it out from the documentation. So, I do not know if it is safe to use LEAF with coroutines in multi-threaded environment. I would really want this to be clarified in the docs before the library review starts. Regards, &rzej;

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Re: [boost] [release] Boost 1.73.0 Release Candidate 1
by Tim Haines 04 May '20

04 May '20

The patch has an extra directory indirection that prevented installation for me. Changing a/boost_1_73_0/boost/outcome to a/boost/outcome worked for me. Thanks. - Tim P.S. Apologies if this interjection breaks the correct flow of the mailing list. I get mine in a digest and couldn't figure out how to reply to just this message. On 28/04/2020 01:08, Glen Fernandes wrote > Niall, if you want we can provide a Boost.Outcome patch on the 1.73 > release notes (in similar fashion to the Coroutine patch on > https://www.boost.org/users/history/version_1_72_0.html under Known > Issues) and on https://www.boost.org/patches/ . Please find attached a diff against Boost 1.73 which was generated from bug fix commit https://github.com/ned14/status-code/commit/9f414ea58264fe0a62172a06f4653ad… Thanks for this, sorry for the bother. Niall

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Circular span still alive
by Bjorn Reese 03 May '20

03 May '20

Last Autumn I asked if people were interested in a circular span and got a positive response. Since then I have been quite about it, mainly due to the usual daily work load. However, I have continued development, and now the project has been renamed and extended with other kinds of spans: circular queue, priority queue, and associative array. https://github.com/breese/vista The common theme for these spans are that they operate on contiguous memory that they do not own. The spans have been developed to be usable for embedded projects that cannot use dynamic memory allocation or exceptions, and where minimal code size is essential. There are also algorithms for in-place incremental insertion and removal in sorted sequences, similar to std::push_heap() and std::pop_heap(). There is also a C++11 std::span in hiding there. The documentation is still incomplete: https://github.com/breese/vista/blob/develop/doc/vista.adoc

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Embarcadero C++ and Boost libraries
by Edward Diener 01 May '20

01 May '20

Embarcardero ( formerly Codegear, formerly Borland ) has had for about five years C++ compilers based on clang, along with the venerable bcc32, which is the Borland compiler of old through a number of transformations. The clang-based Windows compilers are bcc32c/bcc32x for 32-bit development and bcc64 for 64-bit development. The only difference between bcc32c and bcc32x is that the former takes the same command line flags as their legacy bcc32 compiler while the latter, like bcc64, takes clang command line flags. The clang-based C++ compilers are based on clang-5.0, and use the Dinkumware library. The clang based compilers still predefine __BORLANDC__ and __CODEGEARC__ but also predefine __clang__. The latter is the way to distinguish in preprocessor code between the bcc32 compiler and the clang-based compilers. Despite numerous workarounds in Boost code based on the predefined macros __BORLANDC__ and __CODEGEARC__ the bcc32 compiler, not being very C++ compliant even at the C++98/C++03 level at which it operates, has not really worked for Boost since about Boost 1.39. It is useless for modern day Boost. Therefore I have made efforts, in contact with some Embarcadero C++ representatives, to integrate the clang-based compilers into Boost, especially since there is a free non-commercial offering by Embarcadero called C++ Builder Community Edition at https://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder/starter which any Boost developer could use to test these compilers if they wished. I am doing this in the hopes that this may become effective for Boost 1.74.0. Doing this involves: 1) Creating an embarcadero.jam toolset, based on the clang-linux.jam toolset, which supports bcc32x and bcc64. Updating the borland.jam toolset to also support bcc32c. I have done these and the PR has been merged to 'develop' on Boost Build. 2) Updating Boost Config to support the clang-based compilers. I have done this and the PR has been merged to 'develop' on Boost Config. 3) In the update to Boost Config, I have created these macros: a) BOOST_BORLANDC = __BORLANDC__ with __clang__ not defined b) BOOST_CODEGEARC = __CODEGEARC__ with __clang__ not defined c) BOOST_EMBTC = Embarcadero C++ compilers with __clang__ defined Therefore what is really needed in Boost libraries is to change all the code which currently uses __BORLANDC__ to BOOST_BORLANDC and all the code which uses __CODEGEARC__ to BOOST_CODEGEARC when Boost config has been included. When in the rarer case that Boost config has not been included, then __BORLANDC__ logic becomes __BORLANDC__ and !__clang__ and __CODEGEARC__ logic becomes __CODEGEARC__ and !__clang__. I am workiog on doing this for the numerous Boost libraries with workarounds nased on __BORLANDC__ and __CODEGEARC__ in Boost code, and will create PRs for those libraries. I only ask that library maintainers will merge the PRs I create once they have passed their CI tests, since the PRs are almost all just simple transformations regarding the __BORLANDC__ and __CODEGEARC__ in the code. If any library maintainer wants to so this on their own in the 'develop' branch it would be appreciated. Further points: The Embarcadero C++ clang-based compilers are not as good as clang itself, which is at release 9, gcc, or vc++. But they are good enough for the majority of Boost code. The Embarcadero C++ clang-based compilers support only C++17. The documentation implies that they also support C++11 and C++14 but that is not so. But since Boost libraries written for a C++ standard level are supposed to work flawlessly at a higher level this is no impediment for C++ Builder programmers using the Embarcadero C++ compilers in current Boost. I have reported a number of bugs, based on my Boost testing, for the Embarcadero C++ compilers to Embarcadero themselves in their bug reporting system. I believe that any registered user of their free community edition can report bugs to Embarcadero C++ at their bug reporting system at https://quality.embarcadero.com. Hopefully these reports will improve the compilers. It would really be nice, once the Embarcadero C++ clang-based compilers are integrated into current Boost, if regression testers could test their compilers. I will try to do so myself if I have the time and resources. I have discussed this with some Embarcadero C++ representatives about adding the Embarcadero clang-based C++ compilers to one or more CI testing services, but currently there are not any which support them of which I know. Besides the clang-based Windows compiler Embarcadero also has clang-based C++ compilers for 32-bit and 64-bit iOS ( Apple ) and for Android ( Google ). The code in Boost Config distinguishes between these environments, if necessary, with further macros based off of the mnemonic BOOST_EMBTC. It would be nice to add these configurations to embarcadero.jam once the rest of the work is done. But I have no idea how to test any of these other compilers as they are not part of the Windows based Embarcardero C++ Builder Community Edition.

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[review] [LEAF] LEAF Review Starts May 22
by Michael Caisse 01 May '20

01 May '20

The Boost formal review for LEAF (Lightweight Error Augmentation Framework) will take place May 22, 2020 through May 31st. LEAF is brought to us by Emil Dotchevski, the author of Boost.Exception. Similar to Boost.Exception, this library allows arbitrary error objects to be returned; however, unlike Boost.Exception it does not require dynamic memory. The library can be used with or without exception handling. Error handling is such an import part of every software system. LEAF provides a unique solution to the problem. The excellent documentation can be found here: <https://zajo.github.io/leaf/> and includes a tutorial, examples, reference, design rationale, and comparisons to other error handling approaches/libraries. The source is available at github. The review branch will be used during the review period. <https://github.com/zajo/leaf/tree/review> The purpose of this announcement is to give people some time to start looking at the documentation and source code for the library. Feel free to begin asking questions. Most of all, get involved! Everybody has some experience with handling errors. Tell the Boost community what you think of LEAF. Thank you for your participation! michael -- Michael Caisse Ciere Consulting ciere.com

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