To which extent is "boost does it" equivalent to "very portable, use it"?

Question

In this answer to a question asking "is doing Z this way portable" the idea is "boost does it this way, it means it is very portable".

Can I just always consult boost sources to find the most portable way of doing something in C++? How can I judge for myself if boost is really such a collection of super-portable code?

Answer 1

There are some cases where Boost libraries exist precisely because they wrap very non-portable code. The most obvious examples are the file system and threading stuff.

The telltale sign of this is a large use of Boost.Config macros. Boost code that doesn't depend on Boost.Config (or other non-standard #ifdefs) will be highly portable.

Answer 2

Boost is prety well tested against a variety of operating systems

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