Re: [Boost-build] Need help getting header only libraries to work.

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-01-27 03:22:13

On Saturday 21 January 2006 01:47, David Abrahams wrote:

> > Currently
> >
> >     lib a ;
> >
> > is interpreted as searched library named "a", that is you'll get -liba in
> > command line on linux, and a.lib on Windows. So your proposal conflicts
> > with the current semantics (proposed by you, as well). Using presense or
> > absense of usage-requirements in "lib" to determine if that's header-only
> > library or not does not seem reliable to me.
>
> Why not?  To me it seems reliable and only slightly obtuse.

For example:

   lib a
        : # no sources
        : # no requirements
        : # no default build
        : <include>whatever ;

Is this a header-only library? Or a searched library with extra usage 
requirements? 

>
> Some other possibilities:
>
>      lib a : : prebuilt ;
>      lib a : : system ;
>      lib a : : search ;       # I like this one
>      lib b : : header-only ;  # And this one

This overloads the third argument of "lib" -- elsewhere, it means requiements.

>      prebuilt-lib a ;
>      header-only-lib b;

I like this one. I'm not sure we need 'prebuilt-lib' as we current have a way 
to express that, but 'header-only-lib' can be a more readable alternative to 
'alias'.

Would you like to add this rule to builtin.jam?

- Volodya