Boost-announce

Download

boost-announce@lists.stage.boost.cppalliance.org

March 2003

2 participants
2 discussions

Boost version 1.30.0 released
by Beman Dawes 20 Mar '03

20 Mar '03

Boost version 1.30.0 has been released. The highlights include: * Filesystem Library added - Portable paths, iteration over directories, and other useful filesystem operations, from Beman Dawes. * Optional Library added - A discriminated-union wrapper for optional values, from Fernando Cacciola. * Interval Library added - Extends the usual arithmetic functions to mathematical intervals, from Guillaume Melquiond, Hervé Brönnimann and Sylvain Pion. * MPL added - Template metaprogramming framework of compile-time algorithms, sequences and metafunction classes, from Aleksey Gurtovoy. * Spirit Library added - An LL (unlimited lookahead) parser framework that represents parsers directly as EBNF grammars in inlined C++ source code, complete with semantic actions, ASTs and much more, from Joel de Guzman and team. * Smart Pointers Library - many enhancements, intrusive_ptr and smart pointer programming techniques docs added. * boost/assert.hpp, boost/current_function.hpp, boost/throw_exception.hpp, boost/checked_delete.hpp have been documented. * Date-Time Library - several fixes and small additions including an interface change to partial_date. * Function Library - added support for assignment to zero (to clear) and comparison against zero (to check if empty). * Operators Library - now takes advantage of named return value optimization (NRVO) when available, from Daniel Frey. * Regression Tests - Much expanded, plus a very nice summary page from Rene Rivera. * Test Library - added new facilities. * Many fixes and enhancements to other libraries. See www.boost.org for more information.

1 0

Variant Library Review Results
by Jeff Garland 12 Mar '03

12 Mar '03

The Variant library by Eric Friedman and Itay Maman has been accepted into boost. I have summarized the main issues/discussion points below. [Interface/Design] -- There was a long discussion about a better name for 'extract' and whether it should be a member or free function. I'm not sure this was fully agreed, but it seemed like the group was leaning to a free function called 'get' patterned after the final tuple proposal to the library working group. -- The interface should allow variants with a 'void' or 'empty' type. Also, the interface should allow variants with only a single type or possibly no types. http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1547755 provides the conclusion of this discussion. -- Concern about allowing variant with const types and other requirements on bounded types. See http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 -- Concern about using std::type_info for reflection. Also in http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 [Implementation] -- Header files should be moved out of the /boost directory into the /boost/variant or boost/variant/detail. There should be a single include for everything: #include "boost/variant/variant.hpp" -- Template functions in header files (e.g. swap) need to be defined inline to avoid multiply defined errors. -- Several missing include files. See http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 -- There are several headers that extend other parts of boost (eg: config, mpl, type_traits) that should be incorporated into their appropriate boost locations. -- One reviewer suggested that moving everything into namespace boost::variant. [Requested Additions] -- The authors should review suggestions and keep in mind possible synergies with the optional library. There was a fair amount of discussion on this point, but no final consensus on the exact form of any relationships between the libraries. -- One reviewer requested the addition of an operator== which would return true if 2 variants have both the same type and value. [Documentation] -- A couple of reviewers noted a need to distinguish Variant from Any. Itay provided an good explanation which should be incorporated in the documentation. See http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1541597 for Itay's discussion. -- Source code for tutorial and sample programs should be provided under libs/variant/examples. -- There were many detailed documentation issues described in the detailed reviews cited below. In addition to the above summary, the authors should review, evaluate, and incorporate suggestions from the following reviewers. In particular, the authors have not yet responded to the reviews by G. Rozental and R. Richter. E. Brey http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1539095 G. Rozental http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1558173 F. Cacciola http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Mail/Message/1541664 R. Richter (private email). Thanks to all the reviewers. Jeff Garland Variant Review Manager

1 0