C++ Library Working Group Status Report (Post-Antipolis 2008 Mailing)

This paper presents a quick summary of all papers submitted to WG21 for consideration by the Library Working Group, with an indication of their progress towards inclusion in the next C++ Standard or future TRs. It is based on the pre-Antipolis 2008 mailing, along with all updated papers voted on during the Antipolis meeting itself.

There is a minimal crossover with the State of Evolution paper N2652 where concurrency related topics tend to cross the Core/Library divide, and till now have been largely handled by the Evolution Working Group.

Note on progress

A clear statement of intent was made to complete work on the new standard in 2008, in order to achieve publication in 2009. To meet this timetable the plan is to vote out a feature complete Working Draught at the next meeting at Sophia-Antipolis in June. An FCD will be issued from the following meeting, allowing at least a minimal time for review and 'integration testing' of the new features.

In order to reach this goal, the threading library produced by the draughting comittee at Kona has been adopted, although concern was expressed by the Review Committee about the time-related portion of that document. Subsequently, chapter 31 of the working paper has been removed, subject to further Library Working Group efforts to provide an agreed replacement (potentially the same as the original) at the next meeting.

A second proposed compromise to meet the timetable is the scaling back of the garbage collection feature. The reduced feature and API was reviewed by both Evolution and Library working groups in Bellevue and is proceeding as planned.

The third compromise of a reduce scope 'asynchronous return buffer' was presented to the Library Working Group in Bellevue, see N2561.

The major challenge confronting the Library Working Group now is to review the current library for the application of the new Concepts language feature. It is expected that this will consume considerable time at the next meeting. A challenge of a similar scale remains in processing the outstanding Issues List, not reflected here.

Note on previous documents

Much of the library development that has gone into the next standard occurred during the development of Library TR1. That process is captured in document N2364. The last revision of that TR is N1836.

Key to the tables

Papers have been grouped in a self-selecting manner as either new components or updates. There is usually a series of papers describing a proposal's evolution, and only the right-most paper is deemed current. Papers are listed in the order or the clause they apply to, or is most relevant. Exceptions are the updates for language features, which generally apply across the whole library.

Note that while the deadline for new proposals for C++0x is long past, work continues on TR2 and beyond, so new submissions remain welcome.

Proposals in a green font have advanced a category since the last meeting, those in red have moved back, while those in yellow are new or have been updated since the last meeting.

Proposals with a green background have been highlighted as the features that will be delivered in the next version of the standard in the Registration Document.

A Note on Technical Reports

As there will be a continuing series of TRs there is no hard cut-off date for when proposals will be accepted. Once a proposal is ready it will ship as part of the next available TR. There will be natural 'quiet periods' where proposals are accumulating with little attention though, as work focusses on shipping accepted proposals in the next standard, or the next TR.