Re: [Boost-build] absolute include path for bjam with msvc in cygwin

From: Jurko Gospodnetić (jurko.gospodnetic_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-06-26 18:12:30

   Hi Andrej.

> I noticed that if I use the NT-version of bjam (the
> one ending up in tools/jam/bin.ntx86 after compiling
> with build.bat), then the include paths are working
> correctly, even though they appear as Cygwin-paths in
> the output of "bjam -d2". Are they being translated to
> Windows-paths before sent to msvc?
>
> But uhhhh, what version of bjam (NT or Cygwin) should
> I use to compile my own projects? In my case, I use
> Cygwin because I want to be able to use Linux tools
> for development, but I want to create native Windows
> apps (i.e. I want my executables and libraries to be
> the same as if I would compile them in Visual Studio).
> Which one should I choose then,
> tools/jam/bin.ntx86/bjam compiled with build.bat (vc9)
> or tools/jam/bin.cygwinx86/bjam compiled with build.sh
> (gcc)?

   If you want to use bjam under cygwin then you should use the one 
built in the tools/jam/bin.cygwinx86 folder. That one has support for 
automatically converting cygwin paths such as '/usr' to 'C:\Cygwin\usr'. 
If you need this feature in your Jamfiles you can get it by using Boost 
Build's :W variable modifier as in:

   local xxx = "/usr" ;
   ECHO $(xxx:W) ;

   Which should display something like:

   C:\Cygwin\usr

   On the other hand, I have not managed to get that build to do any 
automatic magic on commands issued by Boost Build actions so I do not 
see how it could work in case you are passing cygwin paths to cl.exe. 
The only way I managed to get something similar to your code to work was 
to do the following:

   local x = /usr/local/include ;
   exe aaa : aaa.cpp : <include>$(x:W) ;

   or:

   import path ;
   local x = /usr/local/include ;
   local y = [ path.make $(x:W) ] ;
   exe aaa : aaa.cpp : <include>$(y) ;

   Only then did aaa.cpp correctly include a /usr/local/include/xxx.hpp 
file and the cl.exe response file in that case contained the line:

   "-IC:/Cygwin/usr/local/include"

   I did not take the time to test whether the native or the internal 
path format should be used with the include feature but both seem to 
work fine.

   I have a feeling this whole cygwin build part is not really well 
tested or used and could do with a decent cleaning. :-)

   We use cmd.exe for building on Windows and have Cygwin on the path so 
we can use all of its command-line utilities.

   Hope this helps.

   Best regards,
     Jurko Gospodnetić