Re: [boost] Autolinking when an autolinked function/class is never used

From: Edward Diener (eldiener_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-07-12 15:20:53

John Maddock wrote:
> Edward Diener wrote:
>>> I was recently using the date/time library for the first time, used
>>> functionality which I was pretty sure was not in the built library
>>> based
>>> on the documentation, yet autolinking code was brought in to force
>>> me as
>>> an end-user to specify the location of the import library. When I
>>> defined BOOST_DATE_TIME_NO_LIB in my project settings, everything
>>> linked
>>> fine without specifying the import library, so obviously the DLL was
>>> not needed. Nobody wants to distribute a shared library with their
>>> code when
>>> it is unnecessary.
> 
> This is a known issue with that specific library: I did make an attempt at
> refactoring the headers at one point to fix this, but it went beyond my
> understanding of the library, so this really need Jeff Garland's help to be
> done correctly.

Thanks for letting me know it is a known issue. I hope this can be 
enforced for all libraries for the sake of Boost end-users, to not have 
libraries linked in when they are not needed.