Denis Shevchenko wrote:
So I think a much more interesting and useful project would be:
"an optimally fast, character range processing library which can be used construct a wide variety of character processing algorithms by composition of more primitive concepts in a regular way." Examples include base64, ... and generation of custom code_convert facets for io_streams..
Robert Ramey
I understand you, Robert. You're talking about flexible (and probably big) library, and I'm talking about the utility. But this utility solves one concrete common task, and do it (IMHO) good. This can be compared with boost::mem_fn or boost::lexical_cast - do one concrete task and do it well. My solution is a single .hpp file, and it can be part of... hmmm... Boost.Utility, for example, or even part of Boost.Serialization.
Does your interface support ranges without your having shown it? Is there output iterator support?
Rob Stewart robert.stewart@sig.com
Sorry, Rob, perhaps I misunderstood your question.
In fact, now is the main question about fundamental interest to Boost-based base64 ready-to-use solution, but not about implementation details. Of course, details will be discussed.
I think you'd find it interesting to see how the serialization library does it. ../boost/archive/iterators/base64_from_binary ../boost/archive/iterators/binary_from_base64 These provide a pair of iterators which can be used with any algorithm which take a pair of iterators - ie most of of the standard ones. It's much more than an implementation detail - it's a whole different way of looking at the problem. It works with all of lot's of overstuff. Of course there's nothing that prevents one from creating a wrapper which provides a more convenient interface for many situations. So I would encourage you to think bigger: a) take a look at dataflow iterators in the boost serializaiton library b) take a look at range iterators. (this uses similar technique but is much more general). c) craft a more general - text processing toolkit which includes as examples a convenient wrapper for base64 conversion, also I would like to see it include examples for implementing code_cvt facets. Robert Ramey