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How to handle NULL string for UTF conversion function
by Alexander Grund 04 Dec '19

04 Dec '19

Hi, in my work on Boost.Nowide I encountered a valid NULL string and am unsure how to handle it. Context: Every wrapper functions is basically implemented like: int fFOO(const char* s){ wstackstring const ws(s); // Converts UTF-8 to wchar-buffer/string return _wfFoo(ws.c_str()); } Similar functions like `std::wstring widen(string-or-const-char-ptr)` are provided which can be used like `return _wfFoo(widen(s).c_str());` in the example above. All was fine, because (IIRC) calling e.g. `fopen(NULL)` is not allowed anyway. However `freopen` DOES allow a NULL for the string. So now I'm left with a couple options and would like some opinions on them: 1. Make (w)stackstring aware of NULL input and if default constructed or with NULL return NULL for c_str(). Makes it easy to use as one could even say `return _wfFoo(wstackstring(s).c_str());` w/o any checks but would be inconsistent with the `widen` functions which convert the passed pointer into a std::(w)string and hence require != NULL 2. Disallow NULL (via assert) for all conversions and require manual checking. Best usage would then probably be to ditch the temporary and do `return _wfFoo(s ? wstackstring(s).c_str() : NULL);` 3. Just like 1. but rename (w)stackstring to e.g. (w)cstring (or ncstring/wcstring, or narrow_cstring/wide_cstring) to highlight that it acts like a C-String (and can be NULL as opposed to empty but never NULL) 4. Ditch stackstring entirely. It was complained about by Zach during the review although defended by the author as "stackstring is barely on-stack buffer optimization - it isn't general string and never intended to be so. It isn't in details because it can actually be useful outside library scope." So this would worsen performance a bit as usual SSO are to small for common filenames. Thanks for reading and any insight is welcome! Alex

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[fixed_string] Gavin's review
by Gavin Lambert 04 Dec '19

04 Dec '19

This is my review of the proposed FixedString library. - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? Yes, I think it should be ACCEPTED into Boost. Regarding the bikeshedding of the library/class name itself, I prefer "fixed_capacity_string", as the most accurately descriptive name I can either think of myself or that I have read posted by others. I don't think we should be afraid of longer class names, even for vocabulary types. People can always alias them to something shorter to save typing. (Second choice would be "array_string", although that risks misinterpreting as "string_array", which is something entirely different. "stack_string" is another possibility, though might be misleading if contained within another object on the heap.) - What is your evaluation of the design? Overall, looks good. I agree with the motivations for creating such a type in the first place. I would prefer if it didn't reinvent some existing storage concepts already provided by boost::static_vector (and I don't entirely buy the "reduce dependencies" arguments); however there are some other justifications for this that I do consider valid (such as static_vector not being constexpr). As previously noted, I think implementing substr to return a string_view is a mistake; this will cause lifetime problems if someone tries to drop-in replace a std::string in existing code (which was one of the motivating use cases). I'm happy with this being implemented as a new method "subview". (Maybe std::string should do the same thing...) However I still disagree with the choice to also provide "substr" but with a fixed_string return type. Its semantics (with regard to the capacity of the returned string) are still sufficiently different from std::string as to make its usage confusing and poor-performance-prone. With the method omitted, someone attempting a drop-in-replacement will get an error and will need to decide how best to handle it (usually by using subview, but this may require other changes to extend lifetime, which is why spelling subview as "substr" was bad). And if they really want a copy of the substring, they can still do that via subview simply by assigning it to a fixed_string variable -- this would also require them to explicitly choose an appropriate capacity, which I regard as a good thing. For similar reasons to the above, my preference is also to entirely omit operator+ (as in the current design). The consumer can decide how to rewrite things to use operator+= instead. (While there are ways to implement operator+, as has been discussed, all of these come with hefty caveats and I don't think a compromise is sufficiently safe.) - What is your evaluation of the implementation? I did not have time to do more than glance at the implementation. Although I did previously note (thanks to Deniz for calling attention to it) that the unconditional #define BOOST_FIXED_STRING_USE_BOOST in config.hpp is not the correct usage for configuration defines in Boost. I also think that this could make better use of Boost.Config's existing defines -- while a stated goal was to also produce a standalone library, this could be done by using Boost.Config inside of Boost and using a standalone mini-config header with equivalent defines only for the standalone build. I'm also dubious about the division of implementation between three identically-named header files. Unless this is required for avoiding-ugly-docs reasons I think it would be preferable to merge these into a single header -- and perhaps only a single header, where Boost.Config is used. Finally, though, I wonder if perhaps a variation of this type should be implemented which has as storage only the array itself without a separate size member. This might better serve some serialization or I/O scenarios (as a drop-in replacement for a raw char array), although with the caveat that it would probably have to rely on strlen-equivalents and thus could not contain embedded nulls (which is why it should be a separate type, if implemented, as this is a larger departure from std::string). As this would also typically have a smaller capacity than other use cases it could do things like zero-init which might be too expensive for the general-purpose fixed_string, but which can be very helpful for serialization scenarios. - What is your evaluation of the documentation? The documentation is very short, but seems sufficient for the small scope of the class. - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? I think it will be extremely useful. I do wonder if an immutable_string type would also be useful (especially for constexpr), but that could be a separate library. - Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? I did not try it. - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? A quick reading. Probably a couple of hours in total spread over the entire review period. - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? Yes, I frequently work on code where heap allocation is constrained or disallowed. And with strings.

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[review][fixed_string] FixedString review starts today
by Joaquin M López Muñoz 04 Dec '19

04 Dec '19

The Boost formal review of Krystian Stasiowski and Vinnie Falco's FixedString library starts today November 25 and extends up to December 4. Description FixedString provides a dynamically resizable string of characters with compile-time fixed capacity and contiguous embedded storage in which the characters are placed within the string object itself. Its API closely resembles that of std::string. Repo and docs GitHub repository: https://github.com/18/fixed_string Online docs: https://18.github.io/doc/fixed_string Review questions Here are some questions you might want to answer in your review: - What is your evaluation of the design? - What is your evaluation of the implementation? - What is your evaluation of the documentation? - What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? - Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? - How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? A quick reading? In-depth study? - Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? And finally, every review should answer this question: - Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? I invite you to submit your review, either publicly to the developers or the users lists, or else, if for whatever reason you don't want to go public, directly to me. Thank you for investing your time on reviewing Krystian and Vinnie's work and for contributing to the advancement of Boost. Best regards, Joaquín M López Muñoz Review manager for candidate Boost.FixedString

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Error handling benchmarks: LEAF, Boost Outcome
by Emil Dotchevski 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

I wrote a benchmark program for LEAF and Boost Outcome. Here are the results: https://github.com/zajo/leaf/blob/master/benchmark/benchmark.md

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Reminder: Master branch closes for the 1.72.0 release on Wednesday
by Marshall Clow 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

See the calendar at https://www.boost.org/development/ -- Marshall P.S. Don't forget the release notes!

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Interest in making template programming imperative?
by Tianjiao Yin 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

Hi there, Is there any interest in library that makes template programming imperative. Basically it provides following API VAR(T); // define a variable T SET(T, Type1); // Assign T = Type1 GET(T); // This macro will be expanded to Type1 SET(T, Type2); // Re-assign T = Type2 GET(T); // This macro will be expanded to Type2 The same idea applies to constexpr variable as well. I.e. it's possible to re-define constexpr variable after initialization, though this functionality is not implemented yet. - Github: https://github.com/Mizuchi/tm - Try it online: https://godbolt.org/z/yfQb4K Thanks, Tianjiao

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Fixed String review
by Phil Endecott 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

Dear All, Here is my review of the proposed Fixed String library. In summary I think this would be a useful thing to have in Boost, but there are a few issues with the code as it currently stands. This is based on studying the code and docs and the previous mailing list discussions in September; I haven't actually tried to use the library. Firstly regarding the name, I would much prefer static_string for consistency with boost::container::static_vector and with P0843. Note that static_vector was the preferred name in an LEWG poll, according to P0843. It's true that "static" is an ambiguous word that does not really convey what is different about this string, but then neither does "fixed" in my opinion; "fixed capacity" would, but just "fixed" sounds more like "immutable" to me. On the subject of P0843, it it worth reading as it contains some useful links and rationale: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/p0843r2.html Also a more recent r3 update and reference implementation: https://github.com/gnzlbg/static_vector Here are the features that I think are missing, in no particular order; apologies if some of this does exist but I've missed it: - Much more of it should be constexpr. See P0980R1. That mentions that some of char_traits needs to be constexpr as a prerequisite, but even without that things like size() and empty() can be constexpr. There is also a question of whether all of the elements must be initialised (to 0) by the ctor to be constexpr, which could be costly for a large but sparse container, though it does mean that subsequent push_back()s don't need to store terminators; I don't understand all the issues involved here. (I note a comment in the docs suggesting the lack of constexpr may be temporary.) - In the same vein, more of it should be noexcept - why aren't empty() and size() ? - You can add a specialisation for size 0 that turns it into an empty struct. - You can add a string literal operator"". - You can add std::hash overloads. There are various possibilities for what should happen if the capacity is exceeded, including throwing an exception, asserting, and allowing undefined behaviour. I'm not sure what I would really prefer though I think I'd be more likely to assert() than to throw. See P0843r2 again which discusses this. Regarding your deviations from std::string: operator+ has been omitted because you consider it's not possible to determine a reasonable return type; isn't it just size N+M ? Do you reject that just because it could end up rather large after a sequence of additions? I'd agree if it were N*M but not really for N+M. Have I missed something? You've chosen to return a string_view from substr(). I think that's a bit dangerous; code that does "auto a = s.substr(...)" could end up with a dangling view when s is a fixed string; this makes it more difficult than it should be to migrate from one string type to another, or to write generic code. Regarding the docs, it would be great if the reference could have some highlighting (e.g. bright red?) for the few places where it differs from std::string. My own use for this sort of string has often been to store very large numbers of small strings when total memory usage has been a concern. (A good example would be an textual ID code of some sort, like a postal code or an airport code etc.) For this case, the 8-byte overhead for the size_t length field is a concern; I'd like a static_string<6> to need only 8 bytes total. I suggested changing this to the minimum size needed to store values 0 to N in the previous email discussion, but that hasn't been implemented. My initial thought was that static_string should be implemented on top of boost::container::static_vector<char>. My rationale for that was that static_vector is well-established and doesn't need to be re-implemented, and that a string_facade that adapts a vector<char>-like interface into a string-like interface would be a useful component in its own right. (I've tried to write something like this myself, but it gets tedious very quickly writing out all of those special string methods.) But then I discovered that actually boost::container::static_vector is not implemented as a simple size,data[] pair; apparently it contains pointers to its own storage. So it isn't even trivially- copyable. Now that I know that, I wonder if what we really need is a low-storage-overhead static_vector "done properly" (like the P0843 reference implementation), with a string_facade to make static_string from static_vector<char>. On balance, my view is that this proposal is promising but not quite ready yet. I suggest that the authors should be asked to come back in a few months with a revised version. My preferred design would be an improved static_vector and a string_facade that converts it into a static_string, but if they don't want to do that then simply tidying up the constexpr, noexcept and hash issues would be minimally sufficient. Regards, Phil.

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Re: [boost] [Boost-users] [review][fixed_string] FixedString review starts today
by Peter Dimov 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

> This one at least does something: > > http://quick-bench.com/g_-BAIENMHQ1Pi1d136FBdp0idQ > > It still measures nothing though; the string isn't actually written. Finally, this one actually bothers to write the characters: http://quick-bench.com/-FUFkLtQeEa3brMf-y139G3Bbcg Quickbenches aren't very representative.

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Re: [boost] [Boost-users] [review][fixed_string] FixedString review starts today
by Peter Dimov 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

> Wait, I forgot to increment the size! > > http://quick-bench.com/sI71NY7OpQ8ft27HpELko8q_4xM > > Not much improvement anyway. This one at least does something: http://quick-bench.com/g_-BAIENMHQ1Pi1d136FBdp0idQ It still measures nothing though; the string isn't actually written.

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Re: [boost] [Boost-users] [review][fixed_string] FixedString review starts today
by Peter Dimov 02 Dec '19

02 Dec '19

> > Zach Laine wrote: > > Ok, I tried this myself on Quickbench: > > > > http://quick-bench.com/WZPNHFBKI-hFxThBYRZVjndtBho > > I tried to fix that to add the null terminator, but as a result both > push_backs were entirely optimized away. > > http://quick-bench.com/DtPR9Yov1TSzUFeYRx0ipVvUYBk Wait, I forgot to increment the size! http://quick-bench.com/sI71NY7OpQ8ft27HpELko8q_4xM Not much improvement anyway.

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