[boost] Re: Installing Boost Libraries

From: Braden N. McDaniel (braden_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-02-23 16:35:59

On Wed, 23 Feb 2000, Beman Dawes wrote:

> Jens Maurer sent me an email:
> 
> >>>>
> I am missing some integrated "configure; make; make install" logic
> for the whole of boost. Any other free software package you can get
> your hands on is pretty idiot-proof in this respect. 
> 
> We mainly had header files in the past, so this wasn't really an
> issue ("make install" is equivalent to "cp -r boost
> /usr/local/include", but the odd .cpp file does crop up
> (random_device.cpp, Dietmar's dir_it).
> <<<<
> 
> Yes, an install is needed, and the need will grow as more non-header
> code appears.
> 
> The question is what mechanism to use for an automatic install? It
> would be nice if it supported several popular platforms (Say WinItel
> + Mac + several Unix) and various compilers.
> 
> I don't have much experience with cross-platform installation.  How
> do other folks do it?

GNU autoconf/automake/libtool cover a pretty broad range of platforms. Not
Mac (though I think there's a good deal of hope for OS X support in the
future), and Windows support is limited to Cygwin. The GNU tools are
well-suited to the various Unices, where pre-compiled binaries probably
aren't required. However, specialized installers for Mac and Windows
(which very well may include pre-compiled binaries) are probably called
for.

> Do various people with specific platform experience contribute the
> platform specific portions?

I have some experience setting up GNU builds, and I can take a crack at
this.

> There needs to
> be one single platform independent way of specifying what files (or
> maybe just all the files in some directory) go into the build, so
> that the platform specific portions don't have to be modified just
> because an additional .cpp file is added to the library.

For platforms addressed by the GNU tools, this is automake's job.
Unfortunately, I don't know of a solution that will meet this requirement
for *all* platforms.

-- 
Braden N. McDaniel
braden_at_[hidden]
<URL:http://www.endoframe.com>