Apple has a header called <AssertMacros.h> that #defines both “check” and “check_error.” These macros naturally collide with the same names in Boost. We should consider a global change.
What global change? That Boost not use these names? What about the other horrid macros in that header? Here is a list from Marshall: debug_string, check, ncheck, check_string, ncheck_string, check_noerr, check_noerr_string, verify, nverify, verify_string, nverify_string, verify_noerr, verify_noerr_string, verify_action, require, nrequire, require_action, nrequire_action, require_quiet, nrequire_quiet, require_action_quiet, nrequire_action_quiet, require_string, nrequire_string, requireaction_string, nrequireaction_string, require_noerr, require_noerr_action, require_noerr_quiet, require_noerr_action_quiet, require_noerr_string, require_noerr_action_string. Marshall comments: IMHO, the really nasty ones are: check, verify, require and check_error.
That would also probably require a global policy change for checkins.
Assigning to Beman, Cc'ing John M, component "inspection script" assigned to John although I might be wrong about that, but obviously we need to discuss this. Maybe we'll decide to make it "wontfix"
I really don't want to start a policy of avoiding every name that is defined in any vendor header. I forget the details, but at least one vendor has shipped a header defining "read" and "write" macros! The fix for this one is to complain to Apple. They need to provide a new new header that supplies the functionality but using macro naming discipline, deprecate the old header, and add a warning to the old header suggesting that users migrate to the new header. If they wanted to be really helpful, they could provide a script to automatically change the old names to the new names. And if they have any other headers that fail to apply macro naming discipline, they should do the same for those headers too. By "naming discipline", I mean something like the Boost policy for macro names always being all uppercase and beginning with BOOST_. --Beman