On 4/13/04 5:17 AM, "Gennaro Prota" <gennaro_prota@yahoo.com> wrote: [SNIP]
- Imitating std::bitset, the function to_ulong checks whether there's any 1 bit beyond the positions representable in an unsigned long, eventually throwing an overflow_error. That goes against the "don't pay for what you don't use" principle (think for instance if your bitset has 20 000 elements and you are sure that only the first 8 can be set). It's also the only place where we still check "preconditions" with exceptions and the only reason why dynamic_bitset.hpp still needs to include <stdexcept>.
I always thought that the exception-throwing behavior of std::bitset::to_ulong was a misfeature. You could just have it truncate off the top bits, just like in converting from one unsigned built-in to a shorter type. If you don't have it, you could add a "highest bit" const member function for those that have to know if truncation occurred. Maybe you can change/add "to_ulong" to return boost::uintmax_t. The function would have to be (re)named "to_uintmax". -- Daryle Walker Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie darylew AT hotmail DOT com