Emil Dotchevski wrote:
The disagreement seems to be about the relationship between such conversion library and to- and from- string conversions.
IMO, from the viewpoint of convert(), to- and from- string conversions should be treated as independent interface, much like Boost.NumericConversion or Boost.Units, etc. Why?
For the same reason Boost.NumericConversion and Boost.Units are independent. You're not proposing to make Boost.NumericConversion and Boost.Units also parts of the convert() library, are you?
My current vision is that Boost.NumericConversion and Boost.Units will provide a support layer for Boost.Convert (let's call it that way for now). That support layer will be implemented as a regular extension for the Boost.Convert library. So, the "convert" function will eventually call numeric_cast or quantity_cast, or any other appropriate tool in these libraries to fulfill the conversion.
Why do you want to do this for the to- and from-string conversions?
There must be a misunderstanding between us. From my point of view, the Boost.Convert implementation with regard to the "to/from-string" conversions can rely directly on the streaming operators, that can be provided by users. This mechanism is well-established already, so there is no need in some intermediate layer, like to_string/from_string & co.