Re: [boost] [system] Why is this not header-only?

From: Alexander Nasonov (alnsn_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-04-02 10:35:02

> I'd like to drop this custom class and instead use the ones provided  
> by the recently introduced Boost.System.  However, Boost.System is a  
> binary library, while Boost.Process is currently a header-only  
> library.

IIRC, someone asked recently why asio requires -lboost_system at link time.

In my personal opinion, C++ wrappers for OS services should not be header-only. I would prefer asio, process, shmem and the like to be all consistent with boost.filesystem. Opinions?

> Personally, I'd prefer to keep it that way if possible  
> because it is much easier to use it in third-party code.

I don't think that we should follow masses and put everything in header files. There is an autolink on some systems, we could use this feature. The only problem is that people still "have to" follow an instruction for building those libraries.

It would be interesting to take a big C++ project that depends on many boost libraries and consists of many shared libraries and analyze an overhead introduced by function defined in boost headers. I suspect many duplicates.
--
Alexander Nasonov