Re: [cpp-netlib-devel] Binary parsers

[Dean M. B. <mik...@gm...>]

On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 12:03 AM, Rodrigo Madera
<rod...@gm...> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 3:32 AM, Dean Michael Berris <mik...@gm...>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> BTW, strings can contain binary data just fine (as long as you store
>> the data (7-bit chars) as is).
>
> So are you saying that storing a binary block of data (say an image) into a
> string is okay?

Yes, it's okay.

> Boost has a buffer class made for this. If you want integration with boost
> you need to use boost.
>

What "buffer" class are you talking about?

Are you talking about Boost.Array? Because the last time I checked,
Boost.Array is statically-sized and is not as flexible as an
std::string. IMO, using something from the STL is "better" because you
don't need to rely on Boost being there to use the library. I won't
even be surprised if it was possible to package the header-only Boost
libs with cpp-netlib as a "standalone" download (with the help perhaps
of bcp). Of course if we're using Boost.Asio we rely on Boost.System
-- but other than that I'm confident there shouldn't be a lot of other
libraries cpp-netlib would rely on (of course aside from the STL).

> It makes no sense at all to put strings into every message.
>

Why doesn't it make sense?

A message would consist of bytes -- the easiest way to deal with bytes
is to use std::string.

If you needed a different representation, you can always specialize
the basic_message<> to your tag and use your own storage
representation. The documentation shows you how to do that IIRC.

-- 
Dean Michael C. Berris
Software Engineer, Friendster, Inc.