| <html> |
| <head> |
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> |
| <title>History and reasons to use Boost.Container</title> |
| <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../../doc/src/boostbook.css" type="text/css"> |
| <meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.78.1"> |
| <link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Boost C++ Libraries BoostBook Documentation Subset"> |
| <link rel="up" href="../container.html" title="Chapter 8. Boost.Container"> |
| <link rel="prev" href="known_issues.html" title="Known Issues"> |
| <link rel="next" href="index.html" title="Indexes"> |
| </head> |
| <body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"> |
| <table cellpadding="2" width="100%"><tr> |
| <td valign="top"><img alt="Boost C++ Libraries" width="277" height="86" src="../../../boost.png"></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="../../../index.html">Home</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="../../../libs/libraries.htm">Libraries</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="http://www.boost.org/users/people.html">People</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="http://www.boost.org/users/faq.html">FAQ</a></td> |
| <td align="center"><a href="../../../more/index.htm">More</a></td> |
| </tr></table> |
| <hr> |
| <div class="spirit-nav"> |
| <a accesskey="p" href="known_issues.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/prev.png" alt="Prev"></a><a accesskey="u" href="../container.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/up.png" alt="Up"></a><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/home.png" alt="Home"></a><a accesskey="n" href="index.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/next.png" alt="Next"></a> |
| </div> |
| <div class="section"> |
| <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"> |
| <a name="container.history_and_reasons"></a><a class="link" href="history_and_reasons.html" title="History and reasons to use Boost.Container">History and reasons to use |
| Boost.Container</a> |
| </h2></div></div></div> |
| <div class="toc"><dl class="toc"> |
| <dt><span class="section"><a href="history_and_reasons.html#container.history_and_reasons.boost_container_history">Boost.Container |
| history</a></span></dt> |
| <dt><span class="section"><a href="history_and_reasons.html#container.history_and_reasons.Why_boost_container">Why |
| Boost.Container?</a></span></dt> |
| </dl></div> |
| <div class="section"> |
| <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"> |
| <a name="container.history_and_reasons.boost_container_history"></a><a class="link" href="history_and_reasons.html#container.history_and_reasons.boost_container_history" title="Boost.Container history">Boost.Container |
| history</a> |
| </h3></div></div></div> |
| <p> |
| <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Container</strong></span> is a product of a long development |
| effort that started <a href="http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2004/11/76263.php" target="_top">in |
| 2004 with the experimental Shmem library</a>, which pioneered the use |
| of standard containers in shared memory. Shmem included modified SGI STL |
| container code tweaked to support non-raw <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">allocator</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">pointer</span></code> |
| types and stateful allocators. Once reviewed, Shmem was accepted as <a href="http://www.boost.org/libs/interprocess/" target="_top">Boost.Interprocess</a> |
| and this library continued to refine and improve those containers. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| In 2007, container code from node containers (<code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">map</span></code>, |
| <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">list</span></code>, <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">slist</span></code>) |
| was rewritten, refactored and expanded to build the intrusive container library |
| <a href="http://www.boost.org/libs/intrusive/" target="_top">Boost.Intrusive</a>. |
| <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Interprocess</strong></span> containers were refactored |
| to take advantage of <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Intrusive</strong></span> containers |
| and code duplication was minimized. Both libraries continued to gain support |
| and bug fixes for years. They introduced move semantics, emplacement insertion |
| and more features of then unreleased C++0x standard. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Interprocess</strong></span> containers were always |
| standard compliant, and those containers and new containers like <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">stable_vector</span></code> and <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">flat_</span><span class="special">[</span><span class="identifier">multi</span><span class="special">]</span><span class="identifier">set</span><span class="special">/</span><span class="identifier">map</span></code> were used outside <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Interprocess</strong></span> |
| with success. As containers were mature enough to get their own library, |
| it was a natural step to collect them containers and build <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Container</strong></span>, |
| a library targeted to a wider audience. |
| </p> |
| </div> |
| <div class="section"> |
| <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"> |
| <a name="container.history_and_reasons.Why_boost_container"></a><a class="link" href="history_and_reasons.html#container.history_and_reasons.Why_boost_container" title="Why Boost.Container?">Why |
| Boost.Container?</a> |
| </h3></div></div></div> |
| <p> |
| With so many high quality standard library implementations out there, why |
| would you want to use <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Container</strong></span>? There |
| are several reasons for that: |
| </p> |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| If you have a C++03 compiler, you can have access to C++11 features and |
| have an easy code migration when you change your compiler. |
| </li> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| It's compatible with <span class="bold"><strong>Boost.Interprocess</strong></span> |
| shared memory allocators. |
| </li> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| You have extremely useful new containers like <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">stable_vector</span></code> |
| and <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">flat_</span><span class="special">[</span><span class="identifier">multi</span><span class="special">]</span><span class="identifier">set</span><span class="special">/</span><span class="identifier">map</span></code>. |
| </li> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| If you work on multiple platforms, you'll have a portable behaviour without |
| depending on the std-lib implementation conformance of each platform. |
| Some examples: |
| <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: circle; "> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| Default constructors don't allocate memory at all, which improves |
| performance and usually implies a no-throw guarantee (if predicate's |
| or allocator's default constructor doesn't throw). |
| </li> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| Small string optimization for <code class="computeroutput"><a class="link" href="../boost/container/basic_string.html" title="Class template basic_string">basic_string</a></code>. |
| </li> |
| </ul></div> |
| </li> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| <a class="link" href="extended_functionality.html" title="Extended functionality">Extended functionality</a> |
| beyond the standard based on user feedback to improve code performance. |
| </li> |
| <li class="listitem"> |
| You need a portable implementation that works when compiling without |
| exceptions support or you need to customize the error handling when a |
| container needs to signal an exceptional error. |
| </li> |
| </ul></div> |
| </div> |
| </div> |
| <table xmlns:rev="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~gregod/boost/tools/doc/revision" width="100%"><tr> |
| <td align="left"></td> |
| <td align="right"><div class="copyright-footer">Copyright © 2009-2013 Ion Gaztanaga<p> |
| Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying |
| file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>) |
| </p> |
| </div></td> |
| </tr></table> |
| <hr> |
| <div class="spirit-nav"> |
| <a accesskey="p" href="known_issues.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/prev.png" alt="Prev"></a><a accesskey="u" href="../container.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/up.png" alt="Up"></a><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/home.png" alt="Home"></a><a accesskey="n" href="index.html"><img src="../../../doc/src/images/next.png" alt="Next"></a> |
| </div> |
| </body> |
| </html> |
