• Matt Wilson (29/29) Mar 08 2009 FastFormat is an Open Source C/C++ Output/Formatting library, whose desi...

Matt Wilson <matthewwilson acm.org> writes:

FastFormat is an Open Source C/C++ Output/Formatting library, whose design
parameters are 100% type-safety, efficiency, genericity and extensibility. It
is simple to use and extend, highly-portable (platform and
compiler-independent) and, best of all, it upholds the C tradition of you only
pay for what you use.

FastFormat supports output/formatting of statements of arbitrary complexity,
consisting of heterogeneous types.

FastFormat writes to output "sinks", which can be of arbitrary type. It
implicitly supports any type that is structurally conformant with the standard
library's string, and the library includes adaptors to allow writing to
std::ostream, FILE*, speech (currently Windows-only), STLSoft's auto_buffer,
C-style string buffers, and character buffers. Adaptation to a new type merely
requires the definition of a single function.

FastFormat is robust. Both APIs are 100% type-safe - something neither
IOStreams nor Boost.Format can claim - and with the Write API it is impossible
to compile defective code.

FastFormat is fast. The processing of each statement involves at most one
memory allocation to hold the entire statement, and each statement element is
measured and copied exactly once. As a consequence, the library is on a par
with (the type-unsafe) C's Streams (printf()-family) of functions, faster than
C++'s IOStreams (by 2-5x) and Loki.SafeFormat (by 1-5x), and considerably
faster than Boost.Format (by 5-17x).

FastFormat supports I18N/L10N by using numbered arguments, enabling reordering
of arguments by exchanging format strings. The library comes with a number of
resource bundles, classes whose instances can load sets of localised resource
strings for use as format strings.

FastFormat does not contain any compiler-specific or platform-specific
constructs. It supports UNIX (including Linux and Mac OS-X), and Windows, and
should work with any operating system. It is known to be compatible with Comeau
(4.3.3+), GCC (3.4+), Intel (8+), Metrowerks (8+), Microsoft Visual C++ (6.0+),
and should work with any reasonably modern C++ compiler.

FastFormat is completely free and includes source released under a BSD-style
license. Commercial customisations and related consultancy are provided by
Synesis Software Pty Ltd; http://synesis.com.au/contact.html)

Release 0.3.1 beta 4 contains the following changes:
 * added fastformat::real inserter function(s) suite
 * added fastformat::OutputDebugString_sink sink
 * added "Super Hero" custom type examples, corresponding to the article to
feature in the April issue of Overload, showing inserter function, filter_type
conversion shim, and string access shims
 * added unit test for null sink
 * added unit test for OutputDebugString sink
 * added component test for real inserter
 * added scratch test for real inserter
 * enhanced the fastformat::properties_bundle class, to trim the name and
left-trim the value
 * corrected defect in generated code when build without support for Format JIT
Cache
 * corrected potential defect in default sink to ensure that NULL-pointer is
not passed to string append() (when length is zero)
 * corrected minor type-incompatibilities in format cache
 * corrected guard in numerous sinks from general check for exception support
to check for bad_alloc support
 * corrected incompatibilities in shim_string sink, to ensure works with both
STLSoft 1.9 and 1.10+
 * NOTE: bundles xTests 0.11.1
 * NOTE: depends on STLSoft 1.9.76
 * NOTE: is now incompatible with versions of STLSoft 1.10.1 alpha 1 - alpha 8.
Now use the recently released STLSoft 1.10.1 alpha 9


Download from: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=177382&package_id=204396

Discuss at: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=612781

FastFormat website: http://fastformat.org/

Note: this release of FastFormat requires STLSoft 1.9.76, or later. Download
from http://stlsoft.org/