[Development] RFC: handling of C++ feature test macros

[Giuseppe D'Angelo]

Hi,

Il 09/09/19 14:44, Mutz, Marc via Development ha scritto:
> 3. The wider C++ community seems to settle for non-versioned checks if
> the initial version is sufficient, which may mean that Qt introduces an
> impedance mismatch for pre-standard values where Qt checks the version
> and users and other libraries do not. If there actually are non-standard
> implementation who nonetheless defined the standard feature-test macro,
> but with a lower value, Qt and the user will not agree on the presence
> of a feature.

Let me disagree a bit with this proposal: to me the presence of the 
version check indicates that the intended meaning was for the code to 
work with the feature as published in the Standard, and not with any 
pre-release that a compiler may be implementing.

While I agree that at the moment it has virtually never happened, it 
doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the future. Even today we have 
compilers such as MSVC with "living on the edge" compile flags 
(/c++latest). Our users can use those, and thus potentially trigger 
codepaths that on their specific compiler version are implemented in a 
pre-Standard way.

So, how academic (I think should I say paranoid...) do we want to be?

My 2 c,
-- 
Giuseppe D'Angelo | giuseppe.dangelo at kdab.com | Senior Software Engineer
KDAB (France) S.A.S., a KDAB Group company
Tel. France +33 (0)4 90 84 08 53, http://www.kdab.com
KDAB - The Qt, C++ and OpenGL Experts

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