[/These are templates used in many other Quickbook files.] [template policy_overview[] Policies are a powerful fine-grain mechanism that allow you to customise the behaviour of this library according to your needs. There is more information available in the [link math_toolkit.pol_tutorial policy tutorial] and the [link math_toolkit.pol_ref policy reference]. Generally speaking, unless you find that the [link math_toolkit.pol_tutorial.policy_tut_defaults default policy behaviour] when encountering 'bad' argument values does not meet your needs, you should not need to worry about policies. Policies are a compile-time mechanism that allow you to change error-handling or calculation precision either program wide, or at the call site. Although the policy mechanism itself is rather complicated, in practice it is easy to use, and very flexible. Using policies you can control: * [link math_toolkit.pol_ref.error_handling_policies How results from 'bad' arguments are handled], including those that cannot be fully evaluated. * How [link math_toolkit.pol_ref.internal_promotion accuracy is controlled by internal promotion] to use more precise types. * What working [link math_toolkit.pol_ref.precision_pol precision] should be used to calculate results. * What to do when a [link math_toolkit.pol_ref.assert_undefined mathematically undefined function] is used: Should this raise a run-time or compile-time error? * Whether [link math_toolkit.pol_ref.discrete_quant_ref discrete functions], like the binomial, should return real or only integral values, and how they are rounded. * How many iterations a special function is permitted to perform in a series evaluation or root finding algorithm before it gives up and raises an __evaluation_error. You can control policies: * Using [link math_toolkit.pol_ref.policy_defaults macros] to change any default policy: the is the preferred method for installation wide policies. * At your chosen [link math_toolkit.pol_ref.namespace_pol namespace scope] for distributions and/or functions: this is the preferred method for project, namespace, or translation unit scope policies. * In an ad-hoc manner [link math_toolkit.pol_tutorial.ad_hoc_sf_policies by passing a specific policy to a special function], or to a [link math_toolkit.pol_tutorial.ad_hoc_dist_policies statistical distribution]. ] [/template policy_overview] [template performance_overview[] By and large the performance of this library should be acceptable for most needs. However, often the library has to make a choice whether to be accurate or fast and by default it chooses accuracy over speed. If you would rather have fast rather than fully accurate routines, then refer to the [link perf performance section] for information and examples on how to achieve this. In terms of the algorithms used, this library aims to use the same "best of breed" algorithms as many other libraries: the principle difference is that this library is implemented in C++ - taking advantage of all the abstraction mechanisms that C++ offers - where as most traditional numeric libraries are implemented in C or FORTRAN. Traditionally languages such as C or FORTRAN are perceived as easier to optimise than more complex languages like C++, so in a sense this library provides a good test of current compiler technology, and the "abstraction penalty" - if any - of C++ compared to other languages. The three most important things you can do to ensure the best performance from this library are: # Turn on your compilers optimisations: the difference between "release" and "debug" builds can easily be a [link math_toolkit.getting_best factor of 20]. # Pick your compiler carefully: [link math_toolkit.comp_compilers performance differences of up to 8 fold] have been found between some Windows compilers for example. # Disable internal use of `long double`, this will reduce accuracy but typically yield a 2x speedup on modern x64 hardware/compilers. The [link perf performance section] contains more information on the performance of this library, what you can do to fine tune it, and how this library compares to some other open source alternatives. ] [/template performance_overview] [template compilers_overview[] This section contains some information about how various compilers work with this library. It is not comprehensive and updated experiences are always welcome. Some effort has been made to suppress unhelpful warnings but it is difficult to achieve this on all systems. [table Supported/Tested Compilers [[Platform][Compiler][Has long double support][Notes]] [[Windows][MSVC 7.1 and later][Yes] [All tests OK. We aim to keep our headers warning free at level 4 with this compiler.]] [[Windows][Intel 8.1 and later][Yes] [All tests OK. We aim to keep our headers warning free at level 4 with this compiler. However, The tests cases tend to generate a lot of warnings relating to numeric underflow of the test data: these are harmless.]] [[Windows][GNU Mingw32 C++][Yes] [All tests OK. We aim to keep our headers warning free with -Wall with this compiler.]] [[Windows][GNU Cygwin C++][No] [All tests OK. We aim to keep our headers warning free with -Wall with this compiler. Long double support has been disabled because there are no native long double C std library functions available.]] [[Windows][Borland C++ 5.8.2 (Developer studio 2006)][No] [We have only partial compatibility with this compiler: Long double support has been disabled because the native long double C standard library functions really only forward to the double versions. This can result in unpredictable behaviour when using the long double overloads: for example `sqrtl` applied to a finite value, can result in an infinite result. Some functions still fail to compile, there are no known workarounds at present.]] [[Windows 7/Netbeans 7.2][Clang 3.1][Yes][Spot examples OK. Expect all tests to compile and run OK.]] [[Linux][GNU C++ 3.4 and later][Yes] [All tests OK. We aim to keep our headers warning free with -Wall with this compiler.]] [[Linux][Clang 3.2][Yes][All tests OK.]] [[Linux][Intel C++ 10.0 and later][Yes] [All tests OK. We aim to keep our headers warning free with -Wall with this compiler. However, The tests cases tend to generate a lot of warnings relating to numeric underflow of the test data: these are harmless.]] [[Linux][Intel C++ 8.1 and 9.1][No] [All tests OK. Long double support has been disabled with these compiler releases because calling the standard library long double math functions can result in a segfault. The issue is Linux distribution and glibc version specific and is Intel bug report #409291. Fully up to date releases of Intel 9.1 (post version l_cc_c_9.1.046) shouldn't have this problem. If you need long double support with this compiler, then comment out the define of BOOST_MATH_NO_LONG_DOUBLE_MATH_FUNCTIONS at line 55 of [@../../../../boost/math/tools/config.hpp boost/math/tools/config.hpp]. We aim to keep our headers warning free with -Wall with this compiler. However, The tests cases tend to generate a lot of warnings relating to numeric underflow of the test data: these are harmless.]] [[Linux][QLogic PathScale 3.0][Yes] [Some tests involving conceptual checks fail to build, otherwise there appear to be no issues.]] [[Linux][Sun Studio 12][Yes] [Some tests involving function overload resolution fail to build, these issues should be rarely encountered in practice.]] [[Solaris][Sun Studio 12][Yes] [Some tests involving function overload resolution fail to build, these issues should be rarely encountered in practice.]] [[Solaris][GNU C++ 4.x][Yes] [All tests OK. We aim to keep our headers warning free with -Wall with this compiler.]] [[HP Tru64][Compaq C++ 7.1][Yes] [All tests OK.]] [[HP-UX Itanium][HP aCC 6.x][Yes] [All tests OK. Unfortunately this compiler emits quite a few warnings from libraries upon which we depend (TR1, Array etc).]] [[HP-UX PA-RISC][GNU C++ 3.4][No] [All tests OK.]] [[Apple Mac OS X, Intel][Darwin/GNU C++ 4.x][Yes][All tests OK.]] [[Apple Mac OS X, PowerPC][Darwin/GNU C++ 4.x][No] [All tests OK. Long double support has been disabled on this platform due to the rather strange nature of Darwin's 106-bit long double implementation. It should be possible to make this work if someone is prepared to offer assistance.]] [[Apple Mac OS X,][Clang 3.2][Yes][All tests expected to be OK.]] [[IBM AIX][IBM xlc 5.3][Yes] [All tests pass except for our fpclassify tests which fail due to a bug in `std::numeric_limits`, the bug effects the test code, not fpclassify itself. The IBM compiler group are aware of the problem.]] ] [table Unsupported Compilers [[Platform][Compiler]] [[Windows][Borland C++ 5.9.2 (Borland Developer Studio 2007)]] [[Windows][MSVC 6 and 7]] ] If your compiler or platform is not listed above, please try running the regression tests: cd into boost-root/libs/math/test and do a: bjam mytoolset where "mytoolset" is the name of the [@http://www.boost.org/doc/html/bbv2.html Boost.Build] toolset used for your compiler. The chances are that [*many of the accuracy tests will fail at this stage] - don't panic - the default acceptable error tolerances are quite tight, especially for long double types with an extended exponent range (these cause more extreme test cases to be executed for some functions). You will need to cast an eye over the output from the failing tests and make a judgement as to whether the error rates are acceptable or not. ] [/template compilers_overview] [/ common_overviews.qbk Copyright 2007, 2012, 2014 John Maddock and Paul A. Bristow. Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt). ]