# Review Wizard Status Report for January 2006

# News

Happy New Year! Here are some statistics regarding Boost Library reviews in 2005:

> - 12 Libraries were reviewed
> - 8 Libraries were accepted
> - 1 Library (Function Types) was accepted pending a mini-review
> - 2 Libraries were rejected
> - 1 Library has yet to receive a final verdict (ASIO)

Policy Pointer has been removed from the review queue because the author has stated that it is not quite ready.

We need review managers. Please take a look at the list of libraries in need of managers and check out their descriptions. If you can serve as review manager for any of them, send one of us an email.

Note:
  If you have any suggestions about how we could improve the Review Wizard's status report, please email "reportbase at gmail dot com" and "garcia at cs dot indiana dot edu".

# Review Managers Needed

There are a few libraries in the review queue in need of review managers. If you would like to volunteer to be a review manager, please contact Ron or Tom.

The following libraries still require review managers:

> - Fusion
> - Shmem
> - Pimpl Pointer
> - Type Traits (modification)
> - Function Types

# Review Queue

> - Fixed Strings - January 19 2006 - January 28 2006
> - Intrusive Containers
> - Function Types (mini-re-review)
> - Shmem
> - Fusion
> - Pimpl Pointer
> - Type Traits (modification)

## Fixed Strings

> Author: | Reece Dunn
> Review Manager: | Harmut Kaiser
> Download: | Boost Sandbox (http://boost-sandbox.sourceforge.net/) under fixed_string
> Description: | The fixed string library provides buffer overrun protection for static sized strings (char s[ n ]). It provides a C-style string interface for compatibility with C code (for example, porting a C program to C++). There is also a std::string-style interface using a class based on flex_string by Andre Alexandrescu with a few limitations due to the non-resizable nature of the class.

## Intrusive Containers

> Author: | Olaf Krzikalla
> Review Manager: | to be determined
> Download: | http://people.freenet.de/turtle++/intrusive.zip
> Description: | While intrusive containers were and are widely used in C, they became more and more forgotten in the C++-world due to the presence of the standard containers, which don't support intrusive techniques. Boost.Intrusive not only reintroduces this technique to C++, but also encapsulates the implementation in STL-like interfaces. Hence anyone familiar with standard containers can use intrusive containers with ease.

## Function Types (mini-re-review)

> Author: | Tobias Schwinger
> Review Manager: | to be determined
> Download: | http://boost-sandbox.sourceforge.net/vault/
> Description: |
> This library provides a metaprogramming facility

>   to classify, decompose and synthesize function-, function pointer-, function reference- and member function pointer types. For the purpose of this documentation, these types are collectively referred to as function types (this differs from the standard definition and redefines the term from a programmer's perspective to refer to the most common types that involve functions).

> The classes introduced by this library

>   shall conform to the concepts of the Boost Metaprogramming library (MPL).

> The Function Types library enables the user to:
>   - test an arbitrary type for being a function type of specified kind,
>   - inspect properties of function types,
>   - view and modify sub types of an encapsulated function type with MPL Sequence operations, and
>   - synthesize function types.
> This library supports variadic functions and

>   can be configured to support non-default calling conventions.

## Shmem

> Author: | Ion Gaztanaga
> Review Manager: | to be determined
> Download: | Boost Sandbox Vault -> Memory (http://boost-sandbox.sourceforge.net/vault/index.php?direction=0&order=&directory=Memory) http://ice.prohosting.com/newfunk/boost/libs/shmem/doc/html/index.html
> Description: | Shmem offers tools to simplify shared memory usage in applications. These include shared memory creation/destruction and synchronization objects. It also implements dynamic allocation of portions of a shared memory segment and an easy way to construct C++ objects in shared memory.

> Apart from this, Shmem implements a wide range of STL-like containers and allocators that can be safely placed in shared memory, helpful to implement complex shared memory data-bases and other efficient inter-process communications.

## Fusion

> Author: | Joel de Guzman
> Review Manager: | to be determined
> Download: | http://spirit.sourceforge.net/dl_more/fusion_v2/ http://spirit.sourceforge.net/dl_more/fusion_v2.zip
> Description: | Fusion is a library of heterogenous containers and views and algorithms. A set of heterogenous containers (vector, list, set and map) is provided out of the box along with view classes that present various composable views over the data. The containers and views follow a common sequence concept with an underlying iterator concept that binds it all together, suitably making the algorithms fully generic over all sequence types.

> The architecture is somewhat modeled after MPL which in turn is modeled after STL. It is code-named "fusion" because the library is the "fusion" of compile time metaprogramming with runtime programming.

## Pimpl Pointer

> Author: | Asger Mangaard
> Review Manager: | to be determined
> Download: | Boost Sandbox (http://boost-consulting.com/vault/) under pimpl_ptr.
> Description: | The pimpl idiom is widely used to reduce compile times and disable code coupling. It does so by moving private parts of a class from the .hpp file to the .cpp file. However, it's implementation can be tricky, and with many pitfalls (especially regarding memory management). The pimpl_ptr library is a single header file, implementing a special policy based smart pointer to greately ease the implementation of the pimpl idiom.

## Type_Traits (modification)

> Author: | Alexander Nasonov
> Review Manager: | to be determined
> Download: | http://cpp-experiment.sourceforge.net/promote-20050917.tar.gz or http://cpp-experiment.sourceforge.net/promote-20050917/
> Description: | Proposal to add promote, integral_promotion and floating_point_promotion class templates to type_traits library. Alexander tried it on different compilers with various success: GNU/Linux (gentoo-hardened): gcc 3.3 and 3.4, Intel 7, 8 and 9 Windows: VC7 free compiler Sparc Solaris: Sun C++ 5.3 and 5.7

> See comments at the beginning of promote_enum_test.cpp for what is broken. http://cpp-experiment.sourceforge.net/promote-20050917/libs/type_traits/test/promote_enum_test.cpp

> Alexander requests a fast-track review.

# Libraries under development

## Property Tree

> Author: | Marcin Kalicinski
> Download: | Boost Sandbox Vault (http://boost-consulting.com/vault/) property_tree_rev3.zip

Please let us know of any libraries you are currently developing that you intend to submit for review.