Hack namespace alias to enable use of bind and related utilities like cref in the face of strange observed compiler behavior. More...

Detailed Description

Hack namespace alias to enable use of bind and related utilities like cref in the face of strange observed compiler behavior.

The code in the past used bind and its helpers cref and ref fairly extensively. (Vast majority of binds are now replaced with superior uses of lambdas, with the upgrade to C++1x. So it's far less extensive than in past.) However, there is something odd going on with namespace resolution for these guys. At least in the clang version used as of this writing, bind somehow works without qualification, as does cref (and thus probably ref); I really don't know why. I'd like to use the boost:: versions, though, specifically (for stylistic reasons explained elsewhere). More importantly, I don't want to use something that mysteriously works without qualification – is std:: somehow being forced with some phantom using namespace from some evil header somewhere? I am not sure as of this writing. In any case, this allows one to just say using util::bind_ns::bind and then use bind() without qualification in that block (typically function/method) without worrying that some weird unqualified guy will be used.

Caveat 1: I don't know why, but in the aforementioned clang, using util::bind_ns::cref makes cref() become ambiguous with some std::cref; it's quite unclear why the same complaint then doesn't happen for bind() itself. In that case, when an error is encountered, get rid of the using and instead qualify it as util::bind_ns::cref(). It sucks, but at least it's clear.

Caveat 2: I haven't built in MS Visual Studio in quite a while (though it did use to work at one point), but back then I remember some VC++-specific trouble with bind() resolution. Possibly it's related to the above. Anyway, use bind_ns as needed to get around any such compile errors.

Note: Knowing of this phantom bind() that's magically available sans qualification, I also tried to use unqualified cout and endl in the same context but thankfully got the expected errors in clang saying these identifiers do not exist but suggesting the use of std::cout and std::endl. So, at least it's not all of std being forced on the code.

Todo:: Investigate deeply the cause of the strange behavior with unqualified bind() and others described above this line in the source code.