boost_mpl/doc/src/technical.sgml

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<section id="technical">
<title>Technical details</>

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<section id="details.headers">
<title>Physical structure</>

<para>
The library provides you with a fine-grained header structure with one header per public component (class/function template), with the header named after the component; for example, <literal>boost::mpl::apply&lt;&gt;</> template is defined in the header <literal>boost/mpl/apply.hpp</>. This scheme both ensures that you don't pay for what you don't use in terms of compilation time/header dependencies, and frees you from memorizing/looking up header/component correspondence. Several composite headers for the entities that are likely to be used together (e.g. logical operations - <literal>logical_or</>, <literal>logical_and</>, etc.) are also provided. It allows one to avoid the burden of spelling many <literal>#include</> directives in programs that make an intensive use of the library facilities. 

<footnote id="note.headers"><para>The Boost Preprocessor library <citation><xref linkend="ref.PRE"></> exposes a very similar physical organization; in fact, the libraries even share the common subdirectory naming (<literal>mpl/arithmetic</> <-> <literal>preprocessor/arithmetic</>, <literal>mpl/comparison</> <-> <literal>preprocessor/comparison</>, etc.).</></>

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<section id="details.depend">
<title>Dependencies</>

<para>
Besides <literal>boost/config.hpp</> header, the MPL heavily depends on two other Boost libraries - the Boost Preprocessor library <citation><xref linkend="ref.PRE"></>, and the Type Traits library <citation><xref linkend="ref.TTL"></>. These dependencies are essential and cannot be eliminated. In addition to those, the <literal>boost/mpl/assert.hpp</> header depends on Boost Static Assert library <citation><xref linkend="ref.SAL"></>. The library tests and examples may depend on some additional Boost libraries, e.g. Boost Bind <citation><xref linkend="ref.BBL"></>; you don't have to have those unless you are interested in actually compiling the tests/examples (probably you are, though).
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<section id="details.portability">
<title>Portability</>

<para>
Below is the list of compilers the library has been tested with: 
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<itemizedlist mark="box">
<listitem><simpara>Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0, SP 5</></>
<listitem><simpara>Microsoft Visual C++ .NET (7.0)</></>
<listitem><simpara>Metrowerks CodeWariror 7.2/8.1</></>
<listitem><simpara>Intel C++ Compiler 5.0, 6.0</></>
<listitem><simpara>GCC 2.95.3-5</></>
<listitem><simpara>GCC 3.1</></>
<listitem><simpara>Comeau C/C++ 4.2.45/4.3.0</></>
<listitem><simpara>Borland C++ 5.5.1</></>
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<para>An incomplete matrix of recent test compilation results is available from here - <ulink url="http://www.mywikinet.com/mpl/log.html"></>.
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