boost 1.55 - a short overview

published at 12.11.2013 11:43 by Jens Weller
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So, boost 1.55 was released shortly after Meeting C++ 2013. This version brings a new library and updates the supported compilers. Since 1.54 there have been some quite interesting discussions about modularizing boost and moving to git. The dependency view has not changed much for this version:

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boost::predef

Only one new library with this release, predef is more an addition to boost::config in my opinion. But makes things a lot easier, you can acutally query for certain versions of tools, compilers or libraries as the example shows. Using if/else instead of #if/#else.

Old Compilers

This version removes the support for some old (really old) compilers:

• Digitial Mars 8.41
• GCC 3.3
• Intel 6.0
• Visual C++ 7.1

Also its planned to remove support for

• Metroworks C++ (i.e. codewarrior)
• SunPro 5.7 and earlier
• Borland C++ Builder 2006 (5.82) and earlier

in a future version of boost.

New Compilers

Shortly before the release Microsoft released its 2013 Version of Visual C++, which has a few issues with compiling boost 1.55, its currently not fully supportet AFAIK with 1.55, as its just to shortly available to fully support it in this release. But I think, like for 1.54, there will be patches available later.

Changes

There is a lot of new features (especially in boost::thread), and bugfixes coming with this release. Removing old compilers brings some changes, the most breaking changes are in config and intrusive. Also Quickbook comes now in version 1.6.

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