Re: [boost] Which Boost libraries support which compilers/versions

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-29 18:27:51

Edward Diener wrote:
> Robert Ramey wrote:

> You believe that every end user who wants to use a particular Boost
> library should run a test script just to determine whether or not that
> library is supported by Boost for the compiler/version which that
> person
> uses ?
>
> That would be fine if Boost supplied such a test script for each
> library
> for any particular version of Boost, or even intends to support such a
> test script in the future. Is there presently such a script ? If so,
> and
> it were as easy to run as specifying a command on a command line
> within whatever is the shell for the particular operating system the
> user runs,
> or even if it were a Python script which requires some version of the
> free Python product on the end users machine, I would be glad to use
> it,
> and I imagine many other end users would also.

That's what I think as well.

Currently in tools/regression there is runtest.sh.  I should be in your 
local
copy of boost.  Take a look at it.

The last steps in this script run bjam, process_jam_log, and compiler_status
programs to build a table to view the results of all the tests with the
local tools.  This table can be browsed with any html browser.

There is a similar version within the serialization library which does
the samething for just that library. ( libs/serialization/test).  Included
there are scripts for *nix shell and *.bat file for windoz.  I was much
disappointed to find that these scripts wouldn't run with V2 and
I'm in the process of making adjustments.  This will be very useful
to me and perhaps others.

Ideally, I would like to see the boost "getting started" documentation
include a final section" named something like "Validating your boost
Installation" which runs such a script.  Perhaps there might be a
mechanism for uploading the results somewhere as the testers do
but that would not be important to me.

One pay off for me would be to be able to ask a user who is having
ABI problems or something like that to "validate his local boost
installation" so that a whole class of possible causes could be eliminated
at the start.

Robert Ramey