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Document number: N4332

Date: 2014-11-21

Networking Library Proposal (Revision 3)

by Christopher Kohlhoff

Excerpt:

1. Introduction

In the June 2014 committee meeting in Rapperswil, LEWG requested that Boost.Asio-based N2175 Networking Library Proposal for TR2 (Revision 1) be updated for C++14 and brought forward as a proposed Networking Technical Specification. This document is that revision. As well as updating the proposal for C++14, it incorporates improvements to Asio that are based on the widespread field experience accumulated since 2007.

The Boost.Asio library, from which this proposal is derived, has been deployed in numerous systems, from large (including internet-facing HTTP servers, instant messaging gateways and financial markets applications) to small (mobile phones and embedded systems). The Asio library supports, or has been ported to, many operating systems including Linux, Mac OS X, Windows (native), Windows Runtime, Solaris, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, HP-UX, Tru64, AIX, iOS, Android, WinCE, Symbian, vxWorks and QNX Neutrino.

2. Changes in this revision

Revision 3 addresses issues raised by LEWG in Urbana and includes the following changes:

• String conversions and string parameters have been updated and use string_view where appropriate.
• The header arrangement has been altered to reduce the number of header files, add a convenience header, and add a forward declarations header.
• A diagram has been added to show the relationship between the core socket class templates.

3. Reference implementation

An almost complete implementation of the proposal text may be found in a variant of Asio that stands alone from Boost. This variant is available at https://github.com/chriskohlhoff/asio/tree/master.