Re: [boost] Boost on Windows CE

From: Ulrich Eckhardt (doomster_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-01-27 05:30:46

On Wednesday 24 January 2007 16:30, Anthony Williams wrote:
> I've just started on a project which is Windows CE based, using Microsoft
> Embedded Visual C++ V3 and V4, and I'm having trouble using boost. There
> are several #defines in the code that cover Windows CE (e.g.
> BOOST_NO_ANSI_APIS), so somebody must be using boost successfully.
>
> So, my first question is: what compiler(s) are people using for Windows CE?

I'm using those that come with eVC4 and VC8 (VS2005). eVC4 comes with versions 
12.00 to 12.02. Note: version 12.00 is bug-to-bug compatible with the one 
from VC6, the other two don't differ much either. All of them are 
cross-compilers (except the one for the emulator) so some additional 
backend-problems apply with ARM and MIPS (see e.g. STLport's documentation, 
which has official CE support). VC8 comes with compilers versions 14.x, which 
are already pretty good and should be able compile all of Boost (though not 
necessarily do so due to platform and library restrictions).

> Secondly, though these compilers are pretty similar to MSVC6 in terms of
> direct C++ language support, they are further hampered by the lack of
> exceptions and RTTI for the Windows CE targets needed for my project, and
> by the lack of a decent Standard Library.

Okay, the stdlib can be overcome with STLport5, as you have noticed yourself. 
Now, concerning RTTI (which again is a requirement for exceptions), you 
should be able to use it. Some platforms don't include support for it (see 
again the STLport docs) but it can be retrofitted using patches from MS. For 
other platforms, you will need access to "Platform Builder", which is 
basically a tool to assemble a CE platform from the various modules. If you 
have to use an existing platform, you might be able to persuade the supplier 
to add RTTI support to it, otherwise I'm afraid you're out of luck - at least 
I wouldn't be aware of a way to simply retrofit it to an existing platform.

Concerning the question which libs we use, there are
 - smart pointers
 - optional
 - threads
 - regex
 - function
 - bind
 - lexical_cast

I know that lexical_cast has problems with std::wstring under VC6 and eVC4 
though, so that one is restricted. Also, we are using a patched 1.33.1 
version, and I'm not sure which patches have been accepted yet. The major 
breakage (#if _MSC_VER==1200, which fails for 1201 and 1202) seems to have 
been fixed already, for all others I'd be willing to help out, too, if the 
patches got lost.

cheers

Uli