Could you consider the possibility of adding templated constructors to the iterator library?. I liked the iterator library in made a key part of the implemenation of the serialization library. It was perfect from my standpoint in that it permited me to make smaller iterators and compose them at compile time except for one thing.... The syntax for composing interators wasn't transparent enough for me. I fixed this by adding (through derivation) templated constructors. This let me compose iterators with much simpler syntax. It also permitted me to make "iterator snippets" which composed from other "iterator snippets" (via typedef). Which permited me to express what I wanted in a transparent way. (ok a lot of < and > characters - but still I like it). And all built a compile time so in theory anyway - could be compiled down to optimally efficient code. I called this approach "dataflow iterators" as that what it seemed like to me. Its described in the serialization library. I was always disappointed that no one seemed to find it as appealing as I did - but of course tastes differ. Another thing that would be useful would be the notion of "polymorphic iterators". A case study/example/test where by a family of iterators with the same iterface are derived from base class and the public operations are implemented as virtual functions. This would permit plugging in / composing different iterators at run time. In the serialization library, the concept of polymorphic archives fulfills the same purpose. It was achived without touching the "base library" but by making a "bridge" structure (like microsoft COM) which attached a separate "polymophic" interface via multiple inheritance. my 2 cents. David Abrahams wrote:
That looks like a correct fix to me. I plan to spend a little time on the iterator library soon, and would be very happy to apply this (or something very like it). Would you mind submitting your patch in a ticket at http://svn.boost.org?
Thanks,