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- <!DOCTYPE section PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.5//EN"
- "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/docbookx.dtd">
- <section id="safe_numerics.notes">
- <title>Background</title>
- <para>This library started out as a re-implementation of the facilities
- provided by <ulink url="http://safeint.codeplex.com">David LeBlanc's SafeInt
- Library</ulink>. I found this library to be well done in every way. My main
- usage was to run unit tests for my embedded systems projects on my PC.
- Still, from my perspective it had a few issues.</para>
- <itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>It was a lot of code in one header - 6400 lines. Very unwieldy to
- understand, modify and maintain.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>I couldn't find separate documentation other than that in the
- header file.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>It didn't use <ulink url="http://www.boost.org">Boost</ulink>
- conventions for naming.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>It required porting to different compilers.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>It had a very long license associated with it.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>I could find no test suite for the library.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist>
- <para>Using later versions of C++ and the its standard library, template
- metaprogramming and <ulink url="http://www.boost.org">Boost
- libraries</ulink> I managed to (re)implement similar functionality in under
- 2000 ? lines of code. I promoted this version as a possible submission to
- the Boost. The feedback I received convinced me that no such library would
- be considered acceptable to the large majority of C++ programmers. It seems
- that the desire for maximum performance overrides any requirement that a
- program be known to be free of bugs. By this time I had a better idea of the
- opportunities available with the latest version of C++ (C++14) and resolved
- to address this issue by creating a library which would provide all the
- facilities of safe numerics at minimal runtime cost. The result is what you
- see here. The library now consists of 7000 lines of code, approximately 50
- separate tests and more than 60 pages of documentation and examples.</para>
- <para>Since I wrote the above, I've been contacted by David LeBlanc. He's
- been updating his package and informs me that the latest
- version:<itemizedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>SafeInt does not require porting for different compilers, is
- fully supported on gcc, clang, and Visual Studio.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The license has been changed from MS-PL to MIT license.</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>The library has had a test suite since before it was public, and
- is now located here:</para>
- </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>SafeInt also has no external dependencies other than standard
- library files, and doesn't need anything else installed to
- work.</para>
- </listitem>
- </itemizedlist></para>
- <para>His current package can now be found at in <ulink
- url="https://github.com/dcleblanc/SafeInt">github</ulink>.</para>
- </section>
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