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[inteprocess] static analyzer results
by Gaetano Mendola 19 Dec '14

19 Dec '14

We have upgraded to use boost 1.55 and our static analyzer is telling us: interprocess/detail/win32_api.hpp: ~1145 if if(!SetSecurityDescriptorDacl(&sd, true, 0, false)) takes the true branch then sa.nLenght, sa.lpSecurityDescriptor, sa.bInheritHandle result in not initialized members. interprocess/sync/spin/recursive_mutex.hpp: CTOR at 71 leaves the m_s not initialized interprocess/mapped_region.hpp: ~341 boost::uintmax_t(mapping_size - (offset - page_offset)) > boost::uintmax_t( std::size_t(-1))) is always false

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[compute] review
by Sebastian Schaetz 17 Dec '14

17 Dec '14

Hi, Here is my review of Boost.Compute: 1. What is your evaluation of the design? The library is based upon OpenCL, a cross-platform cross-device open standard that abstracts access to and provides a programming model for many-core vector co-processors such as GPUs. These co-processors are usually referred to as "devices". The library provides a wrapper layer around the OpenCL C interface. It skips the standard OpenCL C++ wrapper which I don't consider a problem because except for destructors there is no added value in using this wrapper. In my opinion Khronos should adopt Boost.Compute as their C++ layer for OpenCL. Boost.Compute provides compatibility with the OpenCL C interface through conversion operators that decay Boost.Compute types to their OpenCL C equivalents. This can be quite useful. On top of this wrapper Boost.Compute exhibits 3 core components: * types to interact with and issue commands to devices: these follow OpenCL concepts but are not necessary if defaults are used * means of managing memory (allocate, copy) on devices: this component contains also asynchronous operations which I consider essential in a library that deals with co-processors * a collection of parallel primitives and meta-functions with an STL interface: this components contains powerful iterators to combine containers and algorithms to implement more complex algorithms in an efficient manner One thing I'm not clear about is how asynchrony is handled. Command queues are exposed, issuing commands to different queues is a way to express concurrency. At the same time copy_async returns a future which is another way of exposing concurrency. It is out of the scope of Boost.Compute to solve the challenges of asynchronous/concurrent operations because it is a different and difficult topic not yet solved for C++ in general either, but at least the documentation should be more explicit about which commands are executed when, which commands are synchronous, which are asynchronous and what is the role of the command_queue in this regard. 2. What is your evaluation of the implementation? I did not evaluate the implementation in detail but looked at a few of the tricks Boost.Compute uses to generate kernels. The implementation of this part of the library is good and instructive. 3. What is your evaluation of the documentation? Boost.Compute documentation is of excellent quality. The recent addition of performance data is helpful. I could not find any documentation about fancy iterators, this should probably be added. Also, it would be great if the my questions regarding asynchrony/concurrency could be addressed in the documentation. 4. What is your evaluation of the potential usefulness of the library? Boost.Compute is extremely useful. With this library a developer familiar with the STL can utilize the processing power of GPUs without any knowledge of vector co-processor programming. The documentation shows that for large vector sizes, some Boost.Compute algorithms outperform the STL by an order of magnitude. 5. Did you try to use the library? With what compiler? Did you have any problems? I tried the unit-tests on a 8x GeForce Titan system without any problems and on a ARM Mali GPU with some unit tests failing. I'll be working with the library author to fix tcomp.lib.boost.develhe problems in these unit tests. I used gcc 4.8.2 for the tests on both GeForce and Mali. 6. How much effort did you put into your evaluation? A glance? Aquick reading? In-depth study? I reviewed the library a few months ago in-depth and reread the documentation for this review as well as ran some unit tests. 7. Are you knowledgeable about the problem domain? My job involves working with both CUDA and OpenCL. Furthermore I am the author of the Aura library [0] a similar, albeit lower level library for accelerator programming. 8. Do you think the library should be accepted as a Boost library? I think the library should be accepted into Boost. The interface is simple and easy to understand for non-experts and the benefits of using this library can be significant. I'd like to add that Boost.Compute represents one level of abstraction for accelerator programming. I'd like the Boost community to keep an open mind when it comes to different levels of abstraction, either lower (i.e. my Aura library) or higher (i.e. VexCL). Libraries with different levels of abstraction can coexist, be compatible with one another or could even build upon one another. Best Regards, Sebastian Schaetz [0] https://github.com/sschaetz/aura

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File Handle and FILE* wrappers?
by Olaf van der Spek 16 Dec '14

16 Dec '14

Hi, Would there be any interest in wrappers for file handles / descriptors and FILE*? Sometimes one needs native handles or FILE* for interoperability or special features like memory mapped IO, but standard C++ doesn't provide convenient RAII friendly wrappers for these. The idea seems trivial yet quite useful. I'm aware of <boost/iostreams/device/file_descriptor.hpp> but it seems to be too high-level. I've put a simple start for FILE* at https://code.google.com/p/xbt/source/browse/trunk/xbt/misc/xbt/cfile.h What do you think? Also posted at https://groups.google.com/a/isocpp.org/forum/#!topic/std-proposals/Q4RdFSZg… -- Olaf

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[utility] What happened to OptionalPointee/compare_pointees?
by Mostafa 16 Dec '14

16 Dec '14

1) OptionalPointee/compare_pointees reside here: libs/utility/OptionalPointee.html, but there's no way to navigate to it from here: libs/utility/ or here: libs/utility/utility.htm 2) IMO, compare_pointees should have stand alone documentation, and be grouped with pointee and indirect_reference. 3) pointee and indirect_reference are not iterator specific, therefore they shouldn't reside under iterator's documentation. IMO, compare_pointees, pointee and indirect_reference should all reside under a pointee utilities section. Thanks.

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Spam ticket
by Barend Gehrels 15 Dec '14

15 Dec '14

Hi, This is not a spam-ticket but an annoying spam-comment in a long closed ticket. How can we handle this? Can the user of this comment (Smithg358) be blocked? Thanks, Barend -------- Original message -------- Onderwerp: Re: [Boost C++ Libraries] #6019: Convex hull and Area, combined, sometimes give wrong result Datum: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 23:23:53 -0000 Van: Boost C++ Libraries <noreply(a)lists.boost.org> CC: boost-bugs(a)lists.boost.org #6019: Convex hull and Area, combined, sometimes give wrong result ------------------------------------------+------------------------------ Reporter: Crispin Cooper <cooperch@…> | Owner: barendgehrels Type: Library Submissions | Status: reopened Milestone: Website 1.X | Component: xpressive Version: Boost.Build-M3 | Severity: Not Applicable Resolution: | Keywords: convex hull area ------------------------------------------+------------------------------ Changes (by Smithg358): * status: closed => reopened * severity: Problem => Not Applicable * type: Bugs => Library Submissions * component: geometry => xpressive * version: Boost 1.47.0 => Boost.Build-M3 * milestone: To Be Determined => Website 1.X * resolution: fixed => Comment: Your goal is to breed all the different dragons available to you ddgkbecefcfgddbk -- Ticket URL: <https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/ticket/6019#comment:7> Boost C++ Libraries <http://www.boost.org/> Boost provides free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries.

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[safe_numerics] questioning the basic idea
by Andrzej Krzemienski 15 Dec '14

15 Dec '14

Hi, I was going through the Safe Numerics library in Boost Library Incubator, and I realized I disagree with the basic idea it is built on. I wanted to rise my concerns here. If I were to summarize in one sentence what this library is, I would say: a drop-in replacement for type int that checks for overflow in run-time and throws an exception if it finds one. Did I get it right? The remainder of this post is based on this interpretation. If so, I am not sure if this idea is a good one and worth promoting in Boost. BTW this is one of my criteria for letting a library into Boost: whether it promotes worthy ideas. I agree with the statement that a program should be UB-free. But I do not think that the approach of letting the programmer do what he did before, having the library or some run-time tool check for potential UB, and throwing an exception instead makes the program any better (or safer). It is just hiding the symptoms but not curing the disease. The programmer should not plant the UB in the first place - I agree. But this is different than first doing the mess and then having the run-time clean it up for you. I know it works for many people, in a number of languages, and it may even be considered a practical solution, but (by inclusion into Boost) I wouldn't like to be sending the message "this is how you are suppose to code". I try to recall how I use type int. I do not think I ever use it for anything that would be close to "numeric" as I know the term from math. Use Case 1 (an index): for (size_t i = 0, I = v.size(); i != I; ++i) { if (i != 0) str += ","; str += v[i]; } There doesn't appear to be a good reason to wrap it into safe<int> here, even though the incrementation could possibly overflow. Plus, it would kill my performance. Use Case 2 (using reasonably small range): I used an int to represent a square on a chessboard. There is only 64 squares, so I couldn't possibly overflow, on whatever platform. And even if there exists a platform where 64 doesn't fit into an int, I would not use safe<int> there. I would rather go for something like double_int. If I were to use some numeric computations on integers and I perceived any risk that I may overflow, I would not be satisfied with having the computations stop because of an exception. I would rather use a bigger type (BigInt?). I do not think int is even meant to be used in numerical computations. I believe it is supposed to be a building block for building more useful types like BigInt. One good usage example I can think of is this. After a while of trying to chase a bug I comae up with a hypothesis that my int could be overflowing. I temporarily replace it with safe<int> and put a break point in function overflow() to trap it and support my hypothesis. I would probably use a configurable typedef then: #ifndef NDEBUG typedef safe<int> int_t; #else typedef int int_t; #endif But is this the intent? But perhaps it is just my narrow perspective. Can you give me a real-life example where substituting safe<int> for int has merit and is not controversial? I do not mean the code, just a story. Regards, &rzej

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[endian] Heads up: breaking name changes coming
by Beman Dawes 15 Dec '14

15 Dec '14

Boost.Endian develop branch is about to have major changes merged in as part of the preparation for a mini-review. AFAICR, the breaking changes are limited to header, class, and function name changes, but there are a lot of hopefully non-breaking changes so I could easily be wrong about that. If you are currently using Boost.Endian develop branch, you will need to change your code accordingly. It would make sense to wait a few days until the mini-review merge is complete and any fixes required by regression test failures are fixed. Thanks for your patience, --Beman

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Re: [boost] List of C++ 11 only Boost libraries and their status?
by Dave Gomboc 14 Dec '14

14 Dec '14

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 08:37 AM, Rogerio dos Santos <rogerio.santos.main(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 8:27 AM, Nat Goodspeed <nat(a)lindenlab.com> wrote: >> >> I'm just contradicting the assumption that those who must work with >> old compilers aren't doing any new development, or have no interest in >> new libraries. >> > > To add to this point, I would like to mention that even new developments > trends might require support to old or limited compilers. E.g.: IoT, real > time projects, industrial HMIs and mobile applications. > > Roger Indeed. I work on embedded, real-time industrial control systems in a field where certain specifications (unfortunately, IMO) severely restrict the platform choices available. In many cases, the systems developed must be built using pre-C++98 compiler technology. While that is a problem I am attempting to address, I suspect it is going to take at least another year to do so, and I am confident that at least one of the platforms will probably never support multi-threading even if its vendor does end up improving or replacing its toolchain (and I have no iron-clad guarantee from the vendor that the toolchain will actually be improved or replaced, though I have a reasonable hope). None of the above constraints imply that the libraries developed by Boost are not of use for these systems, or that we are not interested in using Boost libraries to the extent that it is possible to do so. I think it is possible to structure compatibility code so that it doesn't egregiously interfere with future development. I always get nervous when Steve posts asking to hack away the support for a few more of the older toolchains. While I fully appreciate that his end-goal is well-intentioned, there's still important code out there relying upon some of those pre-C++98 workarounds that can still benefit from the fixes and new libraries introduced into new versions of Boost. Consequently, I'm much in favour of allowing Boost library maintainers who wish to retain support for older compilers the latitude to do so. Dave

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List of C++ 11 only Boost libraries and their status?
by Niall Douglas 13 Dec '14

13 Dec '14

For C++ Now 2015 I am intending to present an overview of C++ 11 only Boost libraries in the review queue or very near the review queue by the time of the conference. I'd appreciate help filling in missing gaps in this list: * Boost.Spirit X3 ETA to Boost review: unknown, last commit was June 2014. * Boost.Proto 0x ETA to Boost review: unknown, last commit was Oct 2013. * Boost.Hana ETA to Boost review: Summer 2015, last commit was today. * Boost.AFIO ETA to Boost review: Already in review queue, last commit was two days ago. * Boost.BindLib ETA to Boost review: Q1 2015, last commit was two days ago. * Boost.Spinlock ETA to Boost review: Q2 2015, last commit was four days ago. * Boost.KernelAlloc ETA to Boost review: Q1 2015, last commit was today. * Boost.Expected ETA to Boost review: no later than Summer 2015 probably much earlier, last commit was two weeks ago. * Boost.CRUX ETA to Boost review: hopefully by end of 2015, last commit was three days ago. I have to admit surprise at how long the list I have collected already is. Are there any other C++ 11 only Boost libraries I am missing, or have I got the ETAs wrong? Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/

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New Feature, MathString.
by Jakub trzciński 13 Dec '14

13 Dec '14

Hi. My name is Jacob and i am new here.i have idea for new feature in boost. Actually i write a little library whitch name MathString. As you see by name the library will be calcule Row's from string. But it's not all. I was write a interface which add own Mathematical functions for row and variables. If you accept my idea i will send whole code. Code for example MathString test("sqrt(x,2)"); test.LinkFunction(&sqrt,"sqrt"); test.pushVariable("x",4); cout<<test.getResluts(); This code will be return 2 (as you know root with level 2 of 4 equals 2)

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