David Abrahams wrote:
Jonathan Turkanis wrote:
I would greatly prefer to use the namespace "boost::io" because:
(i) it is much shorter than "boost::iostreams"; while it is possible to use an alias to shorten it, I'd hate to make users do this when there is a perfectly suitable short name available.
(i) is particularly important, since the documentation will contain a lot of tutorial material in which the namespace qualification can't be omitted, e.g.,
template<typename Sink> void put(Sink& dest, int c) { if (c == '\n') col_no_ = 0; else { if (col_no_ >= line_length_) this->put(dest, '\n'); ++col_no_; } boost::io::put(dest, c); }
Pshaw.
Huzzah!
After a few pages C++ Template Metaprogramming has an example that begins with:
namespace mpl = boost::mpl; // namespace alias
which it then follows with a note that says
"Many examples in this book will use ``mpl::`` to indicate ``boost::mpl::``, but will omit the alias that makes it legal C++."
I know how I would explain the convention; I'm just afraid people won't notice it, and will copy and paste from the examples and find they don't work. It's a bit easier in a printed book, in which there's some expectation that the material will be read from the beginning, than in a heavily hyperlinked web document, where reader are known to skip immediately to somewhere in the middle.
The occurence of boost::io::put in the above example has to be qualified, since otherwise it will refer to the member function being defined. I worry that having to use a long namespace name or to introduce a namespace alias in a high percentage of the examples will make the documentation harder to follow, and the library harder to learn.
So use the technique described above. And if you really can't stand that, do as I suggested originally and introduce the alias in Boost:
namespace boost { namespace iostreams{} namespace io = iostreams; }
Sorry, I didn't read your first post carefully enough. I though you were saying that users should perform the aliasing.
If I have to choose, then, I would much rather use the namespace io and move the library back to boost/io than use the namespace iostreams.
You don't _have_ to choose, but then you could do better than the status quo.
Okay, I'll hold off adding iostreams to CVS while I think about it some more. Jonathan