Re: [Boost-build] UNC path for library search path

Subject: Re: [Boost-build] UNC path for library search path
From: Jurko Gospodnetić (jurko.gospodnetic_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-08-29 18:39:39

   Hi.

> It appears at first look that builtin_normalize_path() does not expect a
> UNC path (a windows path in the form \\server\share\path).
>
> Does anyone has any thoughts as to whether I'm on the right track?

   Yeah, I think Boost Jam generally does not know how to handle UNC 
paths...

   I'm just now in the process of reviewing some of its path 
manipulation code to remove some cases where different path strings 
refering to the same file are not recognized as such and I've seen some 
related code that can use cleaning up. UNC paths will definitely mess up 
some of Boost Jam's 'is apsolute path' checks.

   However, I am not adding UNC path support at the moment and am first 
concentrating on recognizing all Windows/NTFS relative & absolute path 
variants correctly (to remove some recently added quick-fix Boost Build 
code). UNC paths will require more thought as with them I really can see 
no way to check whether two such paths actually refer to the same file. 
This is needed, for example, when loading the same Jam module twice 
using two different UNC paths... my guess is that in such cases we'll 
simply load the module twice with two separate module names but I have 
not gotten to that yet.

   Hope this helps.

   Best regards,
     Jurko Gospodnetić