On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 07:15 +1000, Vladimir Batov <batov@people.net.au> wrote:

...

2. The name of the namespace.

People largely seem content with "boost::string".

I think that is a pretty bold statement as your proposal for boost::string was initially posted merely 26 hours earlier. Perhaps this library should be bundled with the Boost String Algorithms Library, and reside in the boost::algorithm namespace.

...

3. Naming of the conversion functions.

The "to/from/is" set seems to sit well with the majority of people.

I really like the compactness of to/from/is, but something about it feels strange. It feels a bit backward as boost::string::to converts from a string, and boost::string::from converts to a string. Perhaps parse and to_string (or construct). namespace bsa = boost::algorithm; // or boost::string, or boost::convert, or boost::text, or boost. int i_from_s = bsa::parse<int>(s); std::string s_from_i = bsa::to_string<std::string>(i);

...

8. Throw/No-Throw Behavior.

You might have noticed that the interface above *never* throws anything on failure.

...

...

...

template<class T, class String> boost::string::value<T> boost::string::to(String const&, T const& =T()) throw();

...

...

...

template<class T> boost::string::value<std::string> boost::string::from(T const&) throw();

I don't think it is a good idea to have the nothrow exception specification on either boost::string::from nor boost::string::to as the underlying mechanism (iostreams I would believe) or copy-construction of T or construction of String could throw exceptions. Nothrow simply cannot be guaranteed. Regards, Anders Dalvander