Re: [boost] "I want everything" should build "out of the box" (on Windows)

Subject: Re: [boost] "I want everything" should build "out of the box" (on Windows)
From: Kenny Riddile (kfriddile_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-07-28 12:26:23

KTC wrote:
> Users on Microsoft Windows should be able to build boost with 
> everything, both in terms of all supported variants and all boost 
> libraries, with a single command to bjam assuming they have all the 
> optional supporting libraries available.
> 
> An user download boost, and want to build all the libraries that require 
> building go read the Getting Started Guide 
> <.../getting_started/windows.html#invoke-bjam> and see the after getting 
> bjam they use the command
>   bjam --build-dir=build-directory toolset=toolset-name 
> --build-type=complete stage
> 
> So they enter that into the command prompt and see lots of warnings and 
> notes about missing optional components. The warnings and notes itself 
> is fine and informative. Actually, it's incomplete as it stand as it 
> doesn't tell the user about Boost.IOStreams optional component 
> requirement of bzip2 & zlib headers. Okay, the user go and install all 
> the optional components the warnings and notes tell them. After 
> installing Python, ICU (building it first), Expat (building it first), 
> and MPI (say MS-MPI), they try again. This time with the command becoming
>   bjam --toolset=... --build-dir=... --build-type=complete -sHAVE_ICU=1 
> -sICU_PATH="..." -sEXPAT_INCLUDE="..." -sEXPAT_LIBPATH="..." 
> -sBZIP2_SOURCE="..." -sZLIB_SOURCE="..." stage
> 
> Nope, MPI requires modification of user-config.jam or building it on its 
> own with --with-mpi. Why? No other optional components build that way. 
> So they look to see how they do that, and does it.
> 
> Second attempt and ... nope. New to 1.39 is the errors
>   error: link=shared together with runtime-link=static is not allowed
>   error: such property combination is either impossible
>   error: or too dangerious to be of any use
> due to the changes made as a result of 
> <http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2009/04/150675.php>. (Recently 
> noted on 
> <http://groups.google.com/group/boost-list/browse_thread/thread/2a7bd07468b5ffe6>.) 
> While catching those errors is good, maybe it should be fixed as well 
> such that it doesn't come up in the first place if someone do a 
> --build-type=complete with ICU. So now the users have to build 
> Boost.Regex separately from the rest of the library (after finding how 
> to pass the link= & runtime-link= options). By the way, at this point I 
> would like to point out how it's strange that -sHAVE_ICU=1 mean to build 
> with ICU, but so is -sHAVE_ICU=0 .... :S
> 
> And ... nope, even separately Boost.Regex still wouldn't build without 
> errors. No one told them they need to rename icuin.lib, icuind.lib, 
> icuind.pdb & icudt.lib from ICU to icui18n.lib, icui18nd.lib, 
> icui18nd.pdb & icudata.lib respectively.
> 
> With Boost.Regex built, we turn to the rest of the library with 
> --without-regex. After waiting a while, we discover ... nope, Most of 
> the library is built but not Boost.Graph. Sorry, this time no one told 
> them they need to change Boost.Graph's Jamfile.v2 file with 
> "<find-shared-library>expat" to "<find-shared-library>libexpatwMT" and 
> adding "<define>XML_STATIC".
> 
> Boost is great, it's free, it's flexible and I understand it's developed 
> for free by volunteers, but its "installation" for someone that want 
> every libraries could be improved. :-)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> KTC
> 

I'm just looking forward to the day when the current CMake support 
exposes all of this optional functionality (variants, zlib, bzip2, etc.) 
as CMake variables that I can happily configure via the CMake gui, push 
a button, and build exactly what I want.  For some reason, CMake seems 
much more intuitive to me, both in syntax and structure, than using bjam.