On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 9:26 AM, Andrey Semashev <andrey.semashev@gmail.com> wrote:
Emil Dotchevski wrote:
to_string doesn't need a template parameter.
Actually, it does, since I might want different string types to get. Right now there are string and wstring, and more are coming in C++0x.
I've needed to convert things specifically to std::string plenty of times to justify a simple interface where to_string returns std::string. I want to be able, in a header file, to just say:
struct foo; std::string to_string( foo const & ); std::string to_string( foo const &, fmt );
and be done with it.
That simplification as absolutely not acceptable for me, as I convert to wstring just about as often as to string. I think that the library should provide flexibility in this aspect. You can create a tiny wrapper around it, if you only need narrow strings.
What I had in mind is that foo could implement to_string or to_wstring or both, and the library would supply generic overloads of to_string/to_wstring that would kick-in as needed. So, if I give you: std::string to_string( foo const & ); then after you include foo.hpp and presumably boost/to_string.hpp, you can say foo x; std::wstring s=to_wstring(x); which would bind to boost::to_wstring (since there isn't a foo overload of to_wstring) which would do the conversion using the foo to_string overload. Emil Dotchevski Reverge Studios, Inc. http://www.revergestudios.com/reblog/index.php?n=ReCode