Rethinking... (Re: RFC: fp printing speedup...)

[Paolo Carlini]

Nathan Myers wrote:

> Any difference in behavior between the single-character and array
> forms of facet members is a user error. If it doesn't say so
> clearly enough in the standard, that's a Defect. Enter a Defect
> Report on the subject. Mark 12988 as "not a bug", and reference
> the DR.
>
> We're not obliged to make our library stupidly slow just because
> the standard missed identifying, in detail, yet another way that
> a user could do something obviously wrong.

Well, some observations:
  1- The current standard is quite clear about the form of widen which
     must be used.
  2- As far as performance is concerned, the difference is really minimal
     due to both caching and the memcopy thing I pointed out before.
  3- Therefore, wouldn't be more correct to implement first the standard
     in force and only when the DR has reached the "Defect" status
     implement the resolution? Usually, we proceed this way...
  4- What does Martin think? He conceived the testcase, after all!
  5- I'm aware of at least another popular and up to date implementation
     using widen(char).
  6- The "pregnancy metaphor" seems to me really rude, wrt your usual
     very high standards of quality.

Paolo.