Re: [boost] Building software with Boost

Subject: Re: [boost] Building software with Boost
From: John Maddock (john_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-11-01 05:41:51

Lasse Kärkkäinen wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> There are two questions for which I have found no answers:
>>
>> 1. When exactly are -mt (multithreaded) versions of the libraries
>> needed?

That depends on the compiler/platform.

* If the compiler has multiple runtime libraries - thread safe or not - then 
you should always use the Boost library option that matches the runtime used 
(examples include msvc, borland etc, maybe IBM xlc as well).
* If the compiler has a single runtime - usually thread safe - for example 
gcc on Linux - then you can use either depending upon whether your 
application uses threads or not.  For recent Boost releases, and for most 
versions of Boost installed by the Linux distro, there is only one version 
of the libraries anyway (the thread safe version).

>> 2. Boost.System was added in 1.35 and apparently some of the old
>> libraries also depend on it in new Boost versions. Are the
>> inter-library dependencies of Boost actually documented somewhere,
>> or does one need to guess?

There's not a central dependency tree anywhere: but individual libraries 
most certainly should document what they depend on.

HTH, John.