May 2014

N4026: Nested namespace definition -- Robert Kawulak

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N4026

Date: 2014-05-23

Nested namespace definition

by Robert Kawulak

Excerpt:

The paper proposes allowing the use of a qualified name in a namespace definition to define several nested namespaces at once, for example:

    namespace A::B::C {
        //...
    }

The code above would be equivalent to:

    namespace A {
        namespace B {
            namespace C {
                //...
            }
        }
    }   


The feature was already proposed by Jon Jagger in 2003 in the paper N1524 Nested Namespace Definition Proposal, but it has been listed in N2869 State of C++ Evolution (Post San Francisco 2008) under “Not ready for C++0x, but open to resubmit in future”.

N4017: Non-member size() and more -- Riccardo Marcangelo

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N4017

Date: 2014-05-22

Non-member size() and more

by Riccardo Marcangelo

Excerpt:

This is a proposal to add non-member std::size and other useful utility functions (std::empty, std::front, std::back, and std::data). The inclusion of these functions would provide benefits in regards to safety, efficiency, and generality.

N3971: Concurrency TS Editor's Report, May 2014 -- Artur Laksberg

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3971

Date: 2014-05-22

Concurrency TS Editor's Report, May 2014

by Artur Laksberg

Excerpt:

N3970 is the Concurrency TS Draft. It is based on D3904 with the following changes as per LEWG feedback: ...

N3970: Working Draft, Technical Specification for C++ Extensions for Concurrency -- Artur Laksberg

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3970

Date: 2014-05-22

Working Draft, Technical Specification for C++ Extensions for Concurrency

by Artur Laksberg

Excerpt:

1This technical specification describes a number of concurrency extensions to the C++ Standard Library (1.2). These extensions are classes and functions that are likely to be used widely within a program and/or on the interface boundaries between libraries written by different organizations.

N4001: SG5: Transactional Memory (TM) Meeting Minutes 2014/02/03-2014/05/19 -- Michael Wong

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N4001

Date: 2014-05-23

SG5: Transactional Memory (TM) Meeting Minutes 2014/02/03-2014/05/19

by Michael Wong

Excerpt:

Minutes for 2014/02/03 SG5 Conference Call ............................................................................... 2

Minutes for 2014/02/17 SG5 Conference Call ............................................................................... 6

Minutes for 2014/03/10 SG5 Conference Call ............................................................................... 9

Minutes for 2014/03/31 SG5 Conference Call ............................................................................. 13

Minutes for 2014/04/28 SG5 Conference Call ............................................................................. 18

Minutes for 2014/05/12 SG5 Conference Call ............................................................................. 21

Minutes for 2014/05/19 SG5 Conference Call ............................................................................. 27

N3999: Standard Wording for Transactional Memory Support for C++ -- Luchangco, Maurer, Wong, et al.

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3999

Date: 2014-05-23

Standard Wording for Transactional Memory Support for C++

by Victor Luchangco, Jens Maurer, Michael Wong, et al.

Excerpt:

1 Introduction

Transactional memory supports a programming style that is intended to facilitate parallel execution with a comparatively gentle learning curve. This document describes a proposal developed by SG5 to introduce transactional constructs into C++ as a Technical Specification.

This proposal is based in part on the Draft Specification for Transactional Constructs in C++ (Version 1.1) published by the Transactional Memory Specification Drafting Group in February 2012. It represents a pragmatic basic set of features, and omits or simplifies a number of controversial or complicated features from the Draft Specification. Our goal has been to focus SG5’s efforts towards a basic set of features that is useful and can support progress towards possible inclusion in the C++ standard.

In addition to a description of the proposal, this document contains a summary of the issues discussed Section 1.1 as well as Standard Wording for Core Section 8. Library wording is handled in a separate document.

1.1 Changes in previous revisions

N3999 (this paper): From N3919, we updated with discussion results from EWG, and the TM Evening Session of Issaquah. We considered the memory model effect from Chandler on whether a transaction that does not access any shared data induces any happens-before arcs – and in particular whether transactions that are provably thread-local must incur synchronization costs. We describe the result of that discussion in Section 7.1.

We also added Core StandardWording to support TM TS in preparation for the Draft Document. Core Standard Wording will be reviewed in a separate telecon call on June 2, and likely again at Rapperswil. Library wording is posted in N4000 and will be reviewed in Rapperswil.

 

N3988: Towards restrict-like aliasing semantics -- Finkel, Tong, Carruth, Nelson, Vandevoorde, Wong

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N3988

Date: 2014-05-23

Towards restrict-like aliasing semantics for C++

by Hal Finkel, Hubert Tong, Chandler Carruth, Clark Nelson, Daveed Vandevoode, Michael Wong

Excerpt:

This paper is a follow-on to N3635 after a design discussion with many compiler implementers at Issaquah, and afterwards by telecon, and specifically proposes a new alias_set attribute as a way to partition type-based aliasing to enable more fine grain control, effectively giving C++ a more complete restrict-like aliasing syntax and semantics.

How Dropbox Uses C++ for Cross-Platform iOS and Android Development -- Ole Begemann

dropbox.pngDid you know that C++ is a hot language for mobile development? This seems to be widely known among C++ developers, but surprisingly widely unknown in the non-C++ programming community at large. Two of the major reasons why C++ is currently experiencing this surge in mobile interest are:

  • C++'s efficiency and determinism help create power-sipping apps -- ones that not only use fewer CPU cycles, but use them in battery-friendly "bursty" ways that let the CPU sleep frequently, and deterministically let go of expensive resources like sensors immediately when they're not needed.
  • C++'s portability makes it the only cross-platform language that can target every major and minor mobile phone and tablet platform -- including iOS, Android, Windows and Windows Phone, and Blackberry -- never mind of course as usual also targeting every other platform and environment too, from desktops to servers to datacenters where it's already the language of choice in companies from Google to Facebook.

In that vein, here's a post from just before the U.S. long weekend about using C++ for cross-platform mobile development.

Expect to see more news like this. Also, expect to see talks on using C++ for modern cross-platform mobile development as one of the hot topics at CppCon this September.

How Dropbox Uses C++ for Cross-Platform iOS and Android Development

by Ole Begemann

From the article:

When work started on the Mailbox app for Android, the team made the choice to write a large portion of the non-UI code in C++ — rather than rewriting the entire app in Java — with the goal of sharing that common C++ layer between iOS and Android. The iOS app used Core Data at the time, so migrating it off of Core Data to the shared C++ library was also part of the process. C++ seemed like an obvious choice because it is available on every platform and team members preferred the language over Java.

The Carousel team made the same choice since launching simultaneously on iOS and Android was an important goal from the start.

N4047: A Module System for C++ -- Gabriel Dos Reis, Mark Hall, Gor Nishanov

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N4047

Date: 2014-05-27

A Module System for C++

by Gabriel Dos Reis, Mark Hall, Gor Nishanov

Excerpt:

This paper presents a design of a module system for C++. The proposal focuses on programmer’s view of modules (both production and consumption) and how to better support modular programming in the large, componentization, scalable compilation, and semantics-aware developer tools.

N4040: Working Draft, C++ Extensions for Concepts -- Andrew Sutton

A new WG21 paper is available. A copy is linked below, and the paper will also appear in the next normal WG21 mailing. If you are not a committee member, please use the comments section below or the std-proposals forum for public discussion.

Document number: N4040

Date: 2014-05-26

Working Draft, C++ Extensions for Concepts

by Andrew Sutton

Excerpt:

This technical specification describes extensions to the C++ Programming language (1.2) that enable the specification and checking of constraints on template arguments, and the ability to overload functions and specialize templates based on those constraints. These extensions include new syntactic forms and modifications to existing language semantics.