Vladimir Batov wrote:
Based on the previous string-conversion-related discussion that revolved around lexical_cast (started with http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2009/01/147013.php) and Dave's suggestion (http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2009/02/147995.php) I would like to propose to create a new
boost::string
namespace where I'd expect all string-related functionality might be logically housed.
OK, but I'd like to suggest that we should avoid thinking of strings as being particularly "special" in any way. As far as possible we should write generic stuff that can work with any container<char>. This makes it easier to move to things like UTF8 strings, to work with raw char*s, etc. If we don't think that it's possible to make this new stuff generic we should think about why that is.
Dave already mentioned that "Jeff Garland had a really nice set of proposed extensions to std::string that could live in the same space".
I guess this is the link: http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/07/107087.php
My immediate interest/proposal in that namespace would be the string-conversion functionality.
What do people think about the string/number conversions in N2408 ? (http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2007/n2408.html - what is the status of that?) Unless there's something wrong with that, I think we should build on it rather than re-inventing the wheel. (Well, one thing that's wrong with it is that it treats strings as "special", rather than working with generic container-of-characters, per my first point...) Phil.