Re: [Boost-build] gcc.jam weirdness (was: Boost-1.36.0 FreeBSD patches for review)

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] gcc.jam weirdness (was: Boost-1.36.0 FreeBSD patches for review)
From: Steve M. Robbins (steve_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-10-26 11:31:40

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 10:38:14AM +0300, Vladimir Prus wrote:
> On Sunday 26 October 2008 08:32:03 Steve M. Robbins wrote:

> > My take is that the cure is worse than the disease, and should
> > be removed.
> > 
> > Vladimir: is this solving a real problem, or a theoretical one?
> 
> I believe the issue was that Martin was running tests with zillion
> versions of gcc at the same time. Then, when running any given test
> binary, you better point it at the lib dirs of the right compiler.
> Global LD_LIBRARY_PATH is not going to work -- as you have 5 different
> compilers, some of them using same sonames for libraries. 

OK.  So Martin can run his tests as follows:

  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/gcc1/lib do_test ... configure with gcc1
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/gcc2/lib do_test ... configure with gcc2
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/gcc3/lib do_test ... configure with gcc3

etc.  In other words: the test script can run with LD_LIBRARY_PATH set
appropriately.  This solution keeps the complexity where it belongs:
with the complex system.  

The current situation makes the Boost.Build maintainers second-guess
the 99% of simple and correctly-set-up systems, which I submit is an
impossible task.  Well, perhaps not impossible, but the costs outweigh
the benefits from where I sit.

-Steve