| Home | Libraries | People | FAQ | More

## Conceptual Archetypes for Reals and Distributions

There are a few concept archetypes available:

- Real concept for floating-point types.
- Distribution concept for statistical distributions.

###### Real concept

`std_real_concept` is an archetype for theReal types, including the built-in float, double, long double.

    #include <boost/concepts/std_real_concept.hpp>

    namespace boost{
    namespace math{
    namespace concepts
    {
      class std_real_concept;
    }
    }} // namespaces

The main purpose in providing this type is to verify that standard library functions are found via a using declaration - bringing those functions into the current scope - and not just because they happen to be in global scope.

In order to ensure that a call to say `pow` can be found either via argument dependent lookup, or failing that then in the std namespace: all calls to standard library functions are unqualified, with the std:: versions found via a `using` declaration to make them visible in the current scope. Unfortunately it's all to easy to forget the `using` declaration, and call the double version of the function that happens to be in the global scope by mistake.

For example if the code calls ::pow rather than std::pow, the code will cleanly compile, but truncation of long doubles to double will cause a significant loss of precision. In contrast a template instantiated with std_real_concept will only compile if the all the standard library functions used have been brought into the current scope with a using declaration.

### Testing the real concept

There is a test program libs/math/test/std_real_concept_check.cpp that instantiates every template in this library with type `std_real_concept` to verify its usage of standard library functions.

    #include <boost/math/concepts/real_concept.hpp>

    namespace boost{
    namespace math{
    namespace concepts{

    class real_concept;

    }}} // namespaces

`real_concept` is an archetype for user defined real types, it declares its standard library functions in its own namespace: these will only be found if they are called unqualified allowing argument dependent lookup to locate them. In addition this type is useable at runtime: this allows code that would not otherwise be exercised by the built-in floating point types to be tested. There is no std::numeric_limits<> support for this type, since numeric_limits is not a conceptual requirement for RealTypes.

NTL RR is an example of a type meeting the requirements that this type models, but note that use of a thin wrapper class is required: refer to "Using With NTL - a High-Precision Floating-Point Library".

There is no specific test case for type `real_concept`, instead, since this type is usable at runtime, each individual test case as well as testing `float`, `double` and `long double`, also tests `real_concept`.

### Distribution Concept

Distribution Concept models statistical distributions.

    #include <boost/math/concepts/distribution.hpp>

    namespace boost{
    namespace math{
    namespace concepts
    {
      template <class RealType>
      class distribution_archetype;

      template <class Distribution>
      struct DistributionConcept;

    }}} // namespaces

The class template `distribution_archetype` is a model of the Distribution concept.

The class template `DistributionConcept` is a concept checking class for distribution types.

### Testing the distribution concept

The test program distribution_concept_check.cpp is responsible for using `DistributionConcept` to verify that all the distributions in this library conform to the Distribution concept.

The class template `DistributionConcept` verifies the existence (but not proper function) of the non-member accessors required by the Distribution concept. These are checked by calls like

v = pdf(dist, x); // (Result v is ignored).

And in addition, those that accept two arguments do the right thing when the arguments are of different types (the result type is always the same as the distribution's value_type). (This is implemented by some additional forwarding-functions in derived_accessors.hpp, so that there is no need for any code changes. Likewise boilerplate versions of the hazard/chf/coefficient_of_variation functions are implemented in there too.)