[Boost-users] string interest in some `boost-config' script..

Subject: [Boost-users] string interest in some `boost-config' script..
From: Francois Mauger (mauger_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-03-10 07:14:00

Dear boosters,

As a programmer under Unix-like systems, I really appreciate when
a library (say `mylib') provides some `mylib-config' script that helps
its users to build compiler flags. Several industrial strength libraries
have such a tool: GSL, MySQL and, in the field of particle physics 
software I work: CLHEP, ROOT, CERNLIB...

Here is an example for the GSL (GNU Scientific Library):

 >>>
$ gsl-config
Usage: gsl-config [OPTION]

Known values for OPTION are:

   --prefix		show GSL installation prefix
   --libs		print library linking information, with cblas
   --libs-without-cblas	print library linking information, without cblas
   --cflags		print pre-processor and compiler flags
   --help		display this help and exit
   --version		output version information
<<<

I makes really easy to write rather portable makefiles using things like:

CPPFLAGS+=$(shell gsl-config --cflags)
LDFLAGS+=$(shell gsl-config --lib)

Up to now and AFAIK it seems Boost does not provide such script that 
could be generated at build stage for any system. I wrote my own script 
for my own usage (and for people who work with me). But at the end, I 
think it would be better to use an `official' tool.
For my experience, it is also a strong argument to convince newbies
to use Boost on top of standard C++, because it comes in some
rather transparent way.

So I have a few questions:
- Is there such a script hidden in the Boost source tree?
- If not, is there any plan to provide one?
- Is someone else interested with it?

Thank you very much for your comments
[hope this topic has not been addressed in the past!
I apologize in advance for that!]

regards
frc
-- 
François Mauger
Département de Physique - Université de Caen Basse-Normandie
courriel/e-mail: mauger_at_[hidden]
tél./phone: [phone]
fax:        [phone]
Adresse/address:
   Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire de Caen (UMR 6534)
   ENSICAEN
   6, Boulevard du Marechal Juin
   14050 CAEN Cedex
   FRANCE