Re: [boost] [Boost-build] [1.35] what gets built and installed?

From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-12-19 12:04:03

Rene Rivera wrote:
> John Maddock wrote:
>> If I do a:
>>
>> bjam stage --toolset=msvc-8.0 --with-regex
>>
>> Then with 1.35 I don't get any static libraries built, just the
>> dll's.  Was this a deliberate change somewhere?  It's a problem
>> because the default for auto-linking is to look for static rather
>> than dynamic libraries.
>
> Yes, it was intentional
> <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/168552>. We also
> discussed it at one point
> <http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib.boost.devel/166847>. I guess
> we
> should switch autolink to default to the dynamic libs?

That's actually not possible without changing folks library code: it's a 
per-library decision which is the default, with the static library being 
recomended as the default unless there are reasons to choose otherwise. 
There's a great deal of documentation that would have to change to reflect 
this as well.

There's also a rationale for why static linking is the default behaviour in 
our docs here: 
http://www.boost.org/more/separate_compilation.html#static_or_dynamic

There's a further issue with building only one variant under MSVC: it 
doesn't work!

By only building a release build, then the only thing that will work 
"straight out the box" is building a release build of your application 
against the dll runtime.  Debug builds will generate linker errors (can't 
find the auto-linked library etc), as will builds against the static 
runtime, this means that Boost will appear totally broken if users try and 
build the default debug builds that their IDE gives them.

We need to be *very* careful with this, or the complaints will be loud and 
vociferous!

If the aim is to reduce the number of variants built, then I would suggest:

Dymanic *and* static lib, as Release, multithreaded, dynamic runtime single 
build on Unix variants (2 build variants).
Dynamic *and* static lib, Release *and* Debug, multithreaded, dynamic 
runtime on Win32 compilers (that's 4 build variants).

That's an absolute minimum IMO.  Even then we will have to be very careful 
that our build instructions indicate very clearly how to build the other 
variants, especially for those msvc users :-)

Sorry to be the bearer of the bad news,

John.

PS this is too important and far reaching to be discussed only on 
boost-build IMO.