Re: [boost] Header dependency table

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-08-08 10:27:11

From: "Beman Dawes" <bdawes_at_[hidden]>
>  >> "Suppose I'm considering using a Boost library. What other libraries
> will
>  >> also have to be installed because the lib I'm interested in is
> dependent
>  >on
>  >> them?
>  >>
>  >> That's the question we need to be able to answer, and it seems library
>  >> rather than header oriented.
>  >
>  >The Boost "install" unit is the header, since there is no way to
>  >download/install an individual library.
>
> IIRC, someone said that to Nico at the time he posed the question.  I
can't
> remember the details of the conversation (at the Toronto C++ committee
> meeting a couple of years ago) but the point made was that it really isn't
> about download or install issues, but users wishing to use a portion of a
> library without being forced to use the whole library.

The fact of life is that currently Boost does not provide a way to obtain a
component. Users that wish to use a library have to obtain that library
first. Dependencies come second.

If there is no way to obtain a single library, then a per-library dependency
graph doesn't solve the problem.

There is also the issue with headers shared between several libraries.