1[/ 2 Copyright (c) Vladimir Batov 2009-2016 3 Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. 4 See copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt. 5] 6 7[section Rationale] 8 9I was using textual configuration files extensively and was also processing and preparing considerable amounts of data in XML. Consequently, I had a need for an ['extendible] library that would provide a ['uniform] interface to convert various data between their internal binary representations and external (predominantly textual) representations. 10 11The `boost::lexical_cast` library (with its orthogonal and extendible design) looked very promising compared to others (see [@http://www.gotw.ca/publications/mill19.htm The String Formatters of Manor Farm] by H. Sutter for the discussion of alternatives). Unfortunately, 12 13* many deployed user types simply did not meet `boost::lexical_cast` requirements (namely, [@http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/named_req/DefaultConstructible ['Default Constructibility]]); 14* failure to convert a user-provided configuration parameter was not that rare or exceptional to justify the hassle and the overhead of exception processing; consequently, additional flexibility (['if], ['when] and ['how]) in handling conversion failures was needed; 15* additional conversion-related functionality (such as formatting and locale support) were needed. 16 17The original hope was to see `boost::lexical_cast` extended to be applicable to a wider range of deployment scenarios. However, after discussions with Kevlin Henney (the `boost::lexical_cast` author) and in the Boost Developers forum it was collectively decided that the desired extensions were not compatible with the original design and the idea of what `boost::lexical_cast` embodied and, therefore, a new component with richer interface and functionality was needed. That decision resulted in the development of ['Boost.Convert] described in this document. 18 19[endsect] 20