On 2012-12-14 00:26, Boris Schaeling wrote:
On Thu, 13 Dec 2012 12:23:45 +0100, Roland Bock <rbock@eudoxos.de> wrote:
[...]The mitigate header is not even included by defaul, and hints towards it sound like a warning, not an encouragement to use it.
That's correct - exactly what I intended. :)
What I try to get across is that there is a different quality of service. On the one hand there are functions like execute(), wait_for_exit() or the various initializers. They are intrinsic to Boost.Process, and I as the library maintainer guarantee that they work as documented or I'll fix it. On the other hand there are helpers in the mitigate header which maybe do what you need - without an exact definition what this should be nor a guarantee from my side that this will always be the case.
There is for example the typedef boost::process::pipe_end. Depending on the platform it's a different Boost.Asio class. These Boost.Asio classes have a couple of member functions which have the same signature on all platforms. That's what makes it possible to write cross-platform code to initiate asynchronous operations. But boost::process::pipe_end doesn't guarantee that you will never need to use #ifdefs. For example, it is possible that you want to call a member function which exists only on one platform.
From Boost.Process' point of view the ideal solution would be if Boost.Asio provided a cross-platform type for file descriptors/Windows handles. As this type doesn't exist Boost.Process makes a best effort - but no more. Got it, here's what I'd suggest (not being very knowledgeable about Asio's file descriptor / windows handles):
a) File an asio bug / feature request (guess you already did that :-) ) b) Write a wrapper that offers only the common methods. This wrapper would become a typedef (or is eliminated completely) once the platform independent asio type is available With b) you would be able to offer a platform independent pipe_end. And if someone really needed a special feature that isn't available in the platform independent thingy, he could then use the current version #if defined(BOOST_WINDOWS_API) typedef boost::asio::windows::stream_handle pipe_end; #elif defined(BOOST_POSIX_API) typedef boost::asio::posix::stream_descriptor pipe_end; #endif This would have no impact on current users of the library, but it would make it much easier for new users. Regards, Roland