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

From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-07-29 19:00:33

Peter Dimov wrote:
> Edward Diener 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 ?
> 
> Every end user who is not sure whether his configuration is supported by a 
> particular library can run the tests. This is generally done by invoking 
> 'bjam' (or 'bjam --toolset=foo' if the default doesn't work)

This now gets into understanding how bjam works. Argh !!!

How does one find out the name of the toolset which corresponds to the 
compiler/version which one wants to test ?

I am assuming that one must look at Boost Build documentation to 
determine this. However, let us say for VC++, the name msvc only 
specifies a compiler but not a version. Now one has to investigate how 
one specifies both a compiler and a version on the bjam command line. 
Good luck in finding this out for any end-user who does not have the 
patience of Job.

> in the 
> directory containing the tests, for example libs/smart_ptr/test. One can 
> also use 'bjam shared_ptr_test' to single out a particular test. The 
> resulting output could've been friendlier, and the whole procedure better 
> documented, of course.
> 
> In a perfect world typing 'bjam' (or possibly 'bjam show' or something 
> similar) in a test dir would cause an HTML page with the results to be 
> launched in the default browser. :-) 

What I am arguing for is that the end user, given a compiler and a 
version of that compiler, should have an easy path to determine whether 
a library supports that compiler/version. I wish I could believe that 
bjam is easy, but I do not. In particular, telling what compiler/version 
on the bjam command line seems like a complicated thing to me.