PATCH AGAIN: remove_all() method added to the containers

[Richard B. Kreckel]

Hi Roberto,

On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, Roberto Bagnara wrote:
> I am reiterating the following request because of the obvious reasons
> of functionality and efficiency.  Moreover, the issue of C++ ABI
> compatibility (which suggested not to apply the given patch)
> seems now to be completely pointless:

Thank you for reminding us of this patch.  I am completely in favor of
your patch.  Yet, the problems of ABI-compatiblilty between GCC versions 
are completely orthogonal to GiNaC's compatibility as defined by DSO
libraries.  So, it will go in for GiNaC-1.1.

>                                       GCC 2.95 is ABI-incompatible
> with GCC 3.0, which is ABI-incompatible with GCC 3.1, which will
> almost certainly be ABI-incompatible with GCC 3.3.  
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Not almost certainly, GCC 3.2 is already ABI-incompatible with GCC 3.1 in
the strict sense.  It is, however, hoped that GCC 3.3 will be compatible
with the (soon to be released) GCC 3.2.  However, since the
incompatibilities are AFAIK only in corner cases of the name mangling
rules, this may not even affact us at all.  In fact, I think that we were
not at all hit by any of these incompatibilities since GCC 3.0.

>                                                     Moreover, hasn't
> the time of GiNaC 1.1 come yet?

Hmm, it contains some changes that are fine for GCC-3.x but measurably
affect performance for GCC-2.95.x.  I don't know if the time has come yet.  
Can't you live from CVS for a little while longer?

Best wishes
        -richy.
-- 
Richard B. Kreckel
<Richard.Kreckel at Uni-Mainz.DE>
<http://wwwthep.physik.uni-mainz.de/~kreckel/>