[boost] MS compiler detection

From: Ulrich Eckhardt (uli_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-07-06 15:48:43

Hi!

I ported large parts of Boost 1.32 to embedded Visual C++ 4 some time ago. One 
of the major changes was because the included cross compilers reported 
_MSC_VER somewhere in between 1200 and 1202. IOW, a plethora of cases that 
checked ==1200 or >1200 failed to work for a few of them.

I already once submitted a patch, but it hasn't been incorporated yet, so here 
is one against CVS from this afternoon. The changes I made were mostly 
mechanical:

  MSC_VER <= 1200  ->  MSC_VER < 1300
  MSC_VER == 1200  ->  MSC_VER < 1300
  MSC_VER >= 1300  ->  MSC_VER > 1200

Some other changes were that I corrected a few comments that spoke of only 
VC6, but there are too many of them - I didn't get them all. Another change 
was that I prepared the autolinking feature for evc4.

I tested the changes on a mirror of CVS from 6 months ago, and so far it seems 
to work with evc4, vc6 and vc7.1. 

BTW-1: I also noticed the same problem with other compilers/versions, i.e. 
there are checks like 'MSC_VER > 1310' targeting VC8. This will fail if there 
comes a service pack with a compiler with version 13.11, not an acute problem 
though, just something to keep in mind perhaps.
BTW-2: There are a few cases where the compiler version was used to check for 
a feature of the standardlibrary some variants of it came bundled with. I 
think I marked these places with a 'TODO' tag. 

For all who wonder, there is no real standardlibrary shipped with evc4, 
neither a C nor a C++ one. STLport is mandatory therefore. Also, the 
functions of the win32 API that use TCHAR=char are also almost gone, but 
those are another patch another day. 
 A last thing is that when linking, the name of the lib must not be larger 
than 32 chars, or the runtime linker won't be able to find the lib. Explicit 
loading with LoadLibrary still works. Guess how much blood, sweat&tears it 
took me to find out ... the threads lib which is the only one I need is 33 
chars or somesuch.

Please commit these changes, they are easy to verify and nonintrusive for 
unaffected compilers, thanks.

Uli