On 01/13/10 11:17, dherring@ll.mit.edu wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jan 2010, Larry Evans wrote:
On 01/12/10 11:29, dherring@ll.mit.edu wrote:
On Mon, 11 Jan 2010, vicente.botet wrote:
From: "Larry Evans" <cppljevans@suddenlink.net>
The .zip file in subject is here:
http://www.boostpro.com/vault/index.php?&directory=Input%20-%20Output
[snip] I wrote a similar utility, but made different tradeoffs. The basic usage looks like
Indentation nl; // takes optional max depth and depth/level params Indentation::Indent in(nl); // could have used a reference notation Indentation::Outdent out(nl); std::ostream os; os << nl "class x << nl << '{' << in /* or nl.in */ << nl << "int x;" << nl << "int y;" << out << nl << "};"
Rationale: - operator++ and operator-- don't mix "as expected" with operator<<
The functions provided in the indent_filtering_ostream.hpp include:
indent_in indent_out
Ok, I didn't see these; I just looked at the previous email's example.
- distinguishes between indenting and normal newlines
I'm not sure what this means. Does it mean that to indent a line, you have to use nl, as shown in this snippet of the code you posted:
<< nl << "int x;"
If so, then I'm not sure that's an advantage. Could you please elaborate on what you mean?
Yes. In my work, this is a great advantage. People don't like text with trailing whitespaces, but they want blank lines for visual separation.
Doesn't: os<<nl<<"\n" produce trailing whitespace whose length is the current indentation level which is stored somewhere in nl. Hmm... What's the return type from os<<nl. I'm guessing it must be typeof(nl)& because otherwise, how would the change in indentation be communicated from the <<out at the end of the output line: << nl << "int y;" << out Could you clarify how out changes the indentation? Does it modify the nl that occurs at the beginning?
I could see an argument for having \n indent and nl not; it may make it easier to compose indentation with output functions that do not understand it. However, my experience has been that an indenting newlines semantically belong before the line text while a traditional \n appears after the text. This creates a mismatch; a general indentation tool should probably have a (scoped) mechanism for switching behaviors.
Example: (pseudo C++) // code oblivious to indentation ostream & operator<<(ostream &os, vector<int> &v) { for(x=v.begin(); x!=v.end(); x++) os << x << "\n"; return os; } // pretty printing void pretty(Struct s) { out << nl << "Struct s" << indent << nl << "x=" << s.x << nl << "vector=" << indent // one item per line << nl << s.vector << outdent << nl << "y=" << s.y << outdent; }
This will give Struct s x=5 vector= 1 2 3
y=6
Note the undesired newline.
IIUC, nl outputs 1st a '\n' and *then* prints the indentation spaces? Thus the specialization of operator<< for vector<int> ends in a newline which is then followed by another newline produced by the << nl here: << nl << "y=" << s.y << outdent; Is that right. However, I don't see where the indentation for the vector comes from because there's no calls to nl in the operator<< specializtion for vector<int>. Am I missing something? Anyway, I've used the proposed boost indent_ostream (or really it's predecessor) to print out nested structures such as your Struct s in the past. IIRC, the last element printed in a struct has no trailing nl. The task of appending the nl is left to the caller. This protocol is illustrated by the attachment, whose output is: { Struct x=5 v=vector<int> 1 2 3 y=6 }
But if nl appears in the traditional \n location, you have the issue of undesired indentation (the inner printer has to anticipate outdents in the outer) or extra buffering to clean such mistakes.
OK, but I still don't see how your 'nl' and 'out' and 'in' solve the problem better than the solution shown in the attachment.
I have had the best results by putting nl first and defining "pretty printers" that use it for each type I want to print.
But I thought the pseudo code above and the supposed output demonstrate that it *does* produce the extra newline after the vector print. IOW, as I said, I don't syet ee an advantage of using 'nl,out,in'.
- possible to maintain several indentation systems
Could you describe when this would be an advantage?
This is rarely useful, but there are times when indentation differentiates between classes of output line. This is naturally represented by having one indentation object per class.
Couldn't this be handled by defining operator<< for each class? -Larry