Re: [boost] Re: Boost Filesystem Build On GCC

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-02-14 21:02:16

At 06:22 PM 2/14/2004, David Abrahams wrote:
 >"Stephan T. Lavavej" <stl_at_[hidden]> writes:
 >
 >> When Boost Filesystem is built with bjam "-sTOOLS=gcc" or bjam
 >> "-sTOOLS=mingw" on MinGW, the resulting static library is a .lib
 >consisting
 >> of .obj files.  However, it is traditional for gcc to use .a files 
which
 >> consist of .o files.  I fix this by hand by renaming the .obj files to 
.o
 >> and then executing ar rvs libboost_filesystem.a *.o , but it would be
 >nice
 >> if bjam would get it correctly by itself.
 >
 >You need to use a cygwin build of bjam if you want cygwin-protocol
 >file extensions.

It has become clear that when people build Boost.Filesystem using GCC on 
Windows, there are two different expectations:

1) It will behavior like any other Windows app built with any other Windows 
compiler. Cygwin and/or Mingw may be installed, but that doesn't imply any 
change in behavior compared to if they weren't installed. (That's how the 
library behaves now.)

2) The library should behave according to Cygwin's ability to allow a 
program to pretend it is running on a POSIX-style operating system.

Both of these seem valid, so the library needs a configuration mechanism to 
tell it which is desired. Tests have to be altered to verify both flavors 
work correctly.

Is there a second dimension - Running under cmd or running under bash? I 
don't have a clear understanding of that and would appreciate guidance or 
opinions.

--Beman