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| 25 | <h1>Boost Header Policy</h1> |
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| 26 | <p>Header files are the place where a library comes into contact with user code |
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| 27 | and other libraries. To co-exist peacefully and productively, headers must |
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| 28 | be "good neighbors".</p> |
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| 29 | <p>Here are the standards for boost headers. Many of |
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| 30 | these are also reasonable guidelines for general use. |
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| 31 | <ul> |
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| 32 | <li>Header filenames should have a .hpp (lowercase) extension. </li> |
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| 33 | <li>Unless multiple inclusion is intended, wrap the header in #ifndef guards. |
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| 34 | Use a naming convention that minimizes the chance of clashes |
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| 35 | with macro names from other's code. The <a href="#SampleHeader">sample |
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| 36 | header</a> uses the Boost convention of all uppercase letters, with the |
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| 37 | header name prefixed by the namespace name, and suffixed with HPP, separated |
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| 38 | by underscores.</li> |
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| 39 | <li>Wrap the header contents in a namespace to prevent global namespace |
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| 40 | pollution. The namespace approach to pollution control is strongly preferred |
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| 41 | to older approaches such as adding funny prefixes to global names. |
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| 42 | Libraries which are designed to work well with other Boost libraries should |
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| 43 | be placed in namespace <tt>boost</tt>.</li> |
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| 44 | |
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| 45 | <li>Make sure that a translation unit consisting of just the |
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| 46 | contents of the header file will compile successfully.</li> |
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| 47 | |
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| 48 | <li>Place the header file in a sub-directory to prevent conflict with |
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| 49 | identically named header files in other libraries. The parent |
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| 50 | directory is added to the compiler's include search path. Then both |
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| 51 | your code and user code specifies the sub-directory in <tt>#include</tt> |
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| 52 | directives. Thus the header <a href="#SampleHeader">sample header</a> |
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| 53 | would be included by <tt>#include <boost/furball.hpp></tt></li> |
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| 54 | <li>The preferred ordering for class definitions is public members, protected |
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| 55 | members, and finally private members.</li> |
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| 56 | <li>Include the boost/config.hpp <a href="../libs/config/config.htm">configuration |
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| 57 | header</a> if there is a need to deal with compiler or platform |
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| 58 | configuration issues.</li> |
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| 59 | </ul> |
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| 60 | <h2><a name="SampleHeader"></a>Sample Header</h2> |
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| 61 | <pre><tt>// Boost general library furball.hpp header file ---------------------------// |
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| 62 | |
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| 63 | <<i> Copyright and license notice</i>, as indicated in the <a href="license_info.html">license page</a> > |
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| 64 | |
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| 65 | // See http://www.boost.org/ for latest version. |
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| 66 | |
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| 67 | #ifndef BOOST_FURBALL_HPP |
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| 68 | #define BOOST_FURBALL_HPP |
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| 69 | |
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| 70 | namespace boost { |
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| 71 | |
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| 72 | // Furball class declaration -----------------------------------------------// |
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| 73 | |
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| 74 | class furball |
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| 75 | { |
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| 76 | public: |
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| 77 | void throw_up(); |
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| 78 | private: |
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| 79 | int whatever; |
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| 80 | }; // furball |
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| 81 | |
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| 82 | } // namespace |
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| 83 | |
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| 84 | #endif // include guard</tt></pre> |
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| 85 | <h2>Coding Style</h2> |
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| 86 | <p>The alert reader will have noticed that the <a href="#SampleHeader">sample |
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| 87 | header</a> employs a certain coding style for indentation, positioning braces, |
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| 88 | commenting ending braces, and similar formatting issues. These stylistic |
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| 89 | issues are viewed as personal preferences and are not part of the Boost Header |
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| 90 | Policy.</p> |
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| 91 | <hr> |
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| 92 | <p>Revised <!--webbot bot="Timestamp" s-type="EDITED" s-format="%d %B, %Y" startspan -->02 October, 2003<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="38549" --></p> |
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| 93 | |
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| 94 | <p>© Copyright Beman Dawes 1998</p> |
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| 95 | <p> |
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| 96 | Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See |
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| 97 | accompanying file <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">LICENSE_1_0.txt</a> or copy |
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| 98 | at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>) |
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| 99 | </p> |
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| 100 | |
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| 101 | </body> |
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| 103 | </html> |
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